Former Ole Miss running back Fred McAfee is set to join Lane Kiffin‘s first staff at LSU as an assistant running back coach under Kevin Smith, according to a report on Saturday afternoon by 104.5 ESPN’s Matt Moscona.
The son of former New Orleans Saints running back Fred McAfee, who is a Mississippi native and played at Mississippi College, the younger McAfee will be among the ex-Rebels to join forces with Kiffin in Baton Rouge in 2026.
Kiffin has brought multiple assistant coaches with him from Ole Miss over to LSU, including offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., wide receivers coach George McDonald and tight ends coach Joe Cox, and there are others, too. Now, McAfee has been lured by Kiffin, too, after spending 3 years in the Ole Miss program from 2021 to 2023.
According to a CBS Sports report, LSU finalized a deal to hire Smith as its running back coach, with Smith expected to earn close to $1 million per year. He’ll be one of the highest-paid running back coaches in the country, and now McAfee will reportedly be working under him as they try to coach up the LSU backfield in 2026.
The younger McAfee entered the transfer portal after the 2024 spring drills, so he didn’t last at Ole Miss, but he’s yet another link to the program who will instead be part of Kiffin’s new machine at LSU next fall.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
