Lane Kiffin’s first days with the LSU football team have brought a harsh lesson in how quickly momentum can swing. Not long after he watched long-time in-state pledge Kenny Darby back off his commitment, the new Tigers head coach was already under scrutiny over whether his move from Ole Miss would cost LSU as much as it might help. Now, Kiffin has answered at least part of that question by raiding his old commitment list again.
Four-star wide receiver Corey Barber has committed to LSU, he told Hayes Fawcett of Rivals. The 6-foot-1, 185-pound pass-catcher from Pinson, Alabama, decommitted from Ole Miss on Sunday, then quickly jumped into the Tigers’ 2026 class.
BREAKING: Four-Star WR Corey Barber has Committed to LSU, he tells me for @rivals⁰⁰The 6’1 185 WR from Pinson, AL decommitted from Ole Miss on Sunday⁰⁰He’s the 3rd recruit to flip from Ole Miss since Lane Kiffin was hired⁰⁰https://t.co/oIxZRfowV4 pic.twitter.com/HM3SpIOdpK
— Hayes Fawcett (@Hayesfawcett3) December 3, 2025
Per Fawcett, Barber is the third recruit to flip from the Rebels to LSU since Kiffin took over in Baton Rouge, underscoring just how aggressively he’s leveraging relationships built in Oxford to restock his new program.
Barber’s addition is the kind of win LSU football team badly needed after losing Darby, especially at a premium position. An Alabama blue-chipper choosing the Tigers over staying in the Rebels’ orbit sends a useful early message: whatever drama followed Kiffin out of Oxford, his pull with offensive skill talent hasn’t gone anywhere.
For a coach hired to re-energize LSU’s passing game and reassert the Tigers as an SEC recruiting power, this is exactly the profile of prospect he must keep stacking.
In the trenches, Kiffin has already begun a similar tug-of-war. Earlier in the week, 2026 interior offensive lineman Ryan Miret flipped his commitment from Ole Miss to LSU, as Fawcett also reported.
The 6-foot-4, 300-pound Miami product had been pledged to the Rebels since June and became the second prospect that day to announce a move from Oxford to Baton Rouge. There was some outside skepticism about Fawcett’s earlier reporting on a separate recruitment, but if the Miret flip stands, it gives LSU a key building block inside.
Put together, Barber and Miret illustrate the high-wire act Kiffin signed up for: he’s losing pieces like Darby while simultaneously stripping Ole Miss of others he once recruited. If he keeps winning more of these battles than he loses, LSU’s fan base will happily live with the turbulence.
