{"id":419577,"date":"2026-01-20T22:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T22:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/419577\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T22:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T22:40:07","slug":"lane-kiffin-reveals-advice-from-nick-saban-sealed-decision-to-leave-ole-miss-for-lsu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/419577\/","title":{"rendered":"Lane Kiffin reveals advice from Nick Saban sealed decision to leave Ole Miss for LSU"},"content":{"rendered":"

During his introductory press conference, new LSU<\/a> head coach Lane Kiffin<\/a> only hinted at the career advice<\/a> he received from legendary Alabama<\/a> coach Nick Saban<\/a> that ultimately helped him make the difficult decision to leave Ole Miss<\/a> for Baton Rouge. Now, one and a half months later, the new Tigers coach finally spilled the beans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told the story at the press conference, but I was torn. And when I called Coach Saban and talked it through with him, he said: \u2018You know, Lane, you\u2019ll always regret if you don\u2019t go to LSU \u2014 it\u2019s the best job in America,\u2019\u201d Kiffin recalled Tuesday while speaking at The Leadership Power Breakfast, according to WAFB Channel 9\u2019s Jacques Doucet<\/a>. \u201cAnd when he said that, it really made the decision for me. And as I\u2019ve looked at it, it has pushed me, it has gotten me out of a comfort zone. That we were doing amazing things (at Ole Miss), but you come here and you feel the power of the place, and it drives you everyday to even go to another level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saban took some initial heat for seemingly putting his thumb on the scale and helping Kiffin make his dubious decision to leave the Rebels ahead of their eventual semifinal run through the 2025 College Football Playoffs. Of course, Kiffin didn\u2019t help matters by implying Saban \u2014 his former boss at Alabama and mentor \u2014 practically rubberstamped the intra-conference move<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like everybody I talked to outside of the state (of Mississippi) all basically said the same thing, okay. They all said, \u2018Man, you are going to regret it if you don\u2019t take the shot and you don\u2019t go to LSU,\u2019\u201d Kiffin said during his Dec. 1st press conference<\/a>, referring to Saban and ex-USC coach\u00a0Pete Carroll<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s the best job in America<\/a>\u00a0with the best resources, and to win it. And, it\u2019s obviously been done here before by a number of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Saban acknowledged he expected to get some heat from fans, but still pushed back regarding how instrumental his advice ultimately was.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think you can go from one SEC school to another without a whole bunch of people getting pissed off. That\u2019s just the fact of the matter,\u201d Saban said during a Dec. 5 appearance on The Pat McAfee Show<\/a>. \u201cBecause you have these passionate fanbases on both sides of the fence, \u2026 (but) I did not make a decision for anybody. I did not. So you think I wouldn\u2019t have been catching Hell on the internet if I\u2019d (told Kiffin to) stay at Ole Miss?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During his introductory press conference, new LSU head coach Lane Kiffin only hinted at the career advice he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,96466,398,396,397,127580,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-419577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-lane-kiffin-94-jefferson","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-nick-saban-69-monongah","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}