Paul Finebaum, Josh Pate predict ‘contentious’ week between LSU and Ole Miss
By Luke Greco
Published:
As the Rebels celebrate one of the biggest wins in their program’s history and a semifinal appearance in the College Football Playoff, things behind the scenes between LSU and Ole Miss could get “contentious,” according to Paul Finebaum and Josh Pate.
Former Ole Miss head coach and current LSU head coach Lane Kiffin left Ole Miss before its playoff run and brought some of the staff with him to Baton Rouge. They were allowed to stay on the Ole Miss staff and help coach the team through its CFP run. The problem is that the transfer portal window opened on Friday, and Kiffin’s staff still has another week at Ole Miss.
“It’s going to be a problem. Leave it to Lane Kiffin to be sitting there right now with most of his coaching staff having another week (at Ole Miss). He can tweet all he wants, but he expected and I’m sure deep down he was figuring Ole Miss would be out of it early and I could get my staff,” Finebaum said on Friday morning on ESPN’s Get Up. “This is why he left early, to go to LSU and start recruiting when this portal window opened today. And now he is stuck, and can’t really do much about it. It is going to be a chaotic week.”
Pate agreed.
“I know that on the surface, all the right things are going to be said, all the right things are going to be tweeted. Paul is dead on the money here. It’s going to be very contentious behind the scenes,” Pate said. “You’ve got a handful of assistant coaches who were expected to show up for work today, not in Oxford but in Baton Rouge, who are still coaching the Ole Miss Rebels. We don’t have precedent for it. We’ve never really been here. Some people are really going to have to do some soul searching on all sides.”
Kiffin told ESPN that he and Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding have a plan all the way through the championship run, but there exists some uncertainty around who will be where in the week leading up to the Fiesta Bowl game against Miami.
