Lane Kiffin is usually full of surprises, whatever it might be, and during his session with reporters on Monday, the LSU head coach told the SEC and the college football world that he thinks the pressure that exists on Saturday night in Oxford will be on the home team.
That’s right — not with the visiting team with the head coach in Kiffin who bolted from Ole Miss late last season but with the home team, as in the 8th-ranked Rebels. Kiffin’s 7th-ranked Tigers will invade Oxford for the 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff on ABC, with the entire sport watching and with some probably rooting against Kiffin.
But Kiffin was trying to shift the pressure solely to Ole Miss in the SEC opener for both 2-0 teams. He revealed to reporters on Monday that he’s told his LSU players that the pressure won’t be on them come Saturday night.
“I told the players today, man, you don’t have anything to worry about as far as attention on you all week, there’s going to be so much attention, hatred, everything on me, you just get to go play,” Lane Kiffin said. “I said, really, the pressure is on (Ole Miss). They’re the team that, we won 7 games last year, they won 13. They return two Heisman candidates. How often does that ever happen in the same backfield? … You guys just get to go play. The pressure’s not on you.”
No matter who the pressure might be on, whether it’s 1 team or both teams or neither, there is a very important game to be won or lost on Saturday night. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about which team has the better odds to prevail in Oxford:
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.
