Lane Kiffin welcomes JaMarcus Russell to LSU practice, says building is ‘open to former players’
Published:
Lane Kiffin just got to LSU, and he wanted to make 1 thing clear on Tuesday as spring practices rolled on in Baton Rouge — former Tiger football greats like JaMarcus Russell are more than welcome to come back to the place where they starred in college.
It was Russell, the ex-LSU standout quarterback, who returned to Baton Rouge on Tuesday to attend spring practice. And Kiffin, who’s running his first spring practices at LSU after leaving Ole Miss last season, loved having the now 40-year-old Russell on hand for the latest spring practice.
If more former LSU players choose to come back for a day or whatever like Russell did on Tuesday, Kiffin welcomes it, as he told reporters.
“Our building’s open to former players, and I’ve talked to a number of them,” Lane Kiffin said. “Some have come around, and I’ve reached out to others to make sure that they understood that. This is a place they put together and built.”
Russell was certainly part of that building, playing at LSU from 2003-06 before being the No. 1 overall pick of the 2007 NFL Draft. He was named first-team All-SEC and won the Manning Award during his final season in Baton Rouge in 2006. Russell threw for a whopping 6,625 yards with 52 touchdown passes during his illustrious career at LSU, and Kiffin was just happy to see him return.
“It was really neat to see JaMarcus,” Kiffin said. “The first time I was in this building was for his NFL Pro Day.”
Russell was used to winning in Baton Rouge and Kiffin will attempt to win big in his first season as head coach at LSU. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about LSU’s chances among the other top SEC teams to win the conference championship in 2026:
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.
