AJ McCarron claims Ole Miss football feels ‘more confident’ in post-Lane Kiffin era
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
AJ McCarron remains well-connected to sources around Alabama football long after his departure, but he’s been keeping tabs on what’s been going on in Oxford.
Despite a historic run of success under Lane Kiffin before he left Ole Miss for LSU, could the Rebels program as a whole be better off without him? Based on what McCarron has heard, that might be the case.
“From my sources at Ole Miss, I don’t know if they’ll be better as a team, but they feel more confident and more structured from (an) inside-the-building standpoint by losing Lane,” McCarron said on “The Dynasty” podcast he co-hosts with Trent Richardson and Crimson Tide broadcaster Chris Stewart. “He’s a Top 3 offensive mind in all of college football, probably in the history of college football, but it’s all the other antics that come with him.”
Kiffin’s departure was messy for all involved. That certainly includes the players, with a couple of them pushing back on Kiffin’s assertion that they asked him to remain with the team during the Playoff.
That’s not all, though. McCarron’s sources discussed that they felt Kiffin’s recruiting work was lacking.
“There’s been a lot of former staff members and current staff members that have spoken out about how he’s lazy with recruiting, and how Pete Golding and other coaches on that staff held that building together from a recruiting standpoint, especially,” McCarron said.
Those certainly won’t be the only stories we hear of how Kiffin left Oxford. With the Tigers visiting Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in 2026, the welcome — or lack of welcome — he receives will be interesting.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
