Marty Smith details wild circumstances of covering Lane Kiffin’s exit from Oxford
By Rolando Rosa
Published:
Lane Kiffin has rattled the college football world with his stunning decision to depart Ole Miss for LSU prior to the College Football Playoff. ESPN’s Marty Smith had boots on the ground in Oxford prior to Kiffin’s departure for Baton Rouge.
However, getting there in time ended up like a scene from The Dukes of Hazzard. During an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, Smith hilariously recalls the adventurous navigation necessary to locate Kiffin.
“Lane is basically giving me the play-by-play on where he is. I’m wheeling this van. We take a left. When we take a left off this highway, there’s all these firetrucks that have blocked off the road. There’s firemen blocking the road,” Smith said. “I said to hell with it…There’s a field that we drive around the barricade through all this farm equipment. The van is bottoming out…Then I mat this van all the way on top of the hill to the tarmac area and there he stood. Laughing his [expletive] off.”
Despite the public outcry against Lane Kiffin‘s choice and timing, Smith is appreciative of the head coach’s transparency in such a sensitive moment.
“It is the greatest era in the history of the program and he’s chosen to go to the enemy,” Smith said. “I asked him every question that I felt was pertinent in that moment. All the way down to what does LSU offer you that Ole Miss doesn’t? I give him a lot of credit because he said: ‘I don’t know that yet. It may not be the right decision yet. We’ll find out.'”
During Kiffin’s six seasons at Ole Miss, he amassed a 55-19 record and the program is headed to its first appearance in the College Football Playoff.
