Lane Kiffin downplays coaches’ familiarity in LSU-Ole Miss showdown, jokes about suiting up with Pete Golding
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Lane Kiffin was in a serious mood and a joking mood, all at the same time, because it’s Kiffin, and he was just trying to make a point about this Saturday night’s titanic SEC showdown in Oxford between his No. 7 LSU team and No. 8 Ole Miss, the program he used to coach.
The battle of 2-0 teams will be waged in primetime with a 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff on ABC, and Kiffin’s point during his session with reporters on Monday was that no form of familiarity that exists between the programs because of recent history is going to help either side.
Yes, Kiffin was the head coach at Ole Miss right up until he bolted for LSU late last season and, yes, Pete Golding worked under Kiffin as his defensive coordinator during the previous 3 seasons. But it won’t be Kiffin vs. Golding on Saturday night, even if some college football fans might love that. It’ll be LSU vs Ole Miss, and Kiffin wanted to convey that at the start of what will surely be a crazy and chaotic week in both Oxford and Baton Rouge.
“Pete’s not gonna tackle anybody, I’m not gonna throw any touchdowns,” Lane Kiffin said. “I used to say the same thing when we played (Nick Saban). … This is about our guys, like I talked to them today. This is the first SEC game. Both teams are 2-0. And we’ve got to prepare really well, and it won’t be about all the other stuff and all the noise and everything. It’ll be about how well do we practice, how well do we prepare and how well do we play on game day.”
Kiffin and Golding won’t be suiting up on Saturday night when the Tigers and Rebels hook up in Oxford, and here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about which team has the better odds to prevail in the highly anticipated matchup:
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.
