The 2025 LSU football season went from disaster, marred by Brian Kelly's firing. The Tigers immediately got into the Lane Kiffin market and were competing with Ole Miss to try to keep him in Oxford. Given the market he was in, his asking price soared, and the contract he signed with LSU made him the second-highest-paid coach in the country, behind only Kirby Smart.
On Monday's episode of “Wake Up Barstool,” FOX Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt says that despite all the buzz around Kiffin and how he got to LSU, he does not think he comes close to being a top-three coach in college football. He would put other coaches like Dan Lanning, Marcus Freeman, and Steve Sarkisian ahead of Kiffin.
Klatt asked the question, “If LSU has a search where they say just three best candidates period, not best available candidates, three best candidates is he on that list?”
Kirby Smart and Ryan Day are the obvious choices ahead of Kiffin, but after that, there are more choices of coaches that have shown more than Kiffin has in a shorter amount of time, which is why Klatt listed Lanning, Freeman, and Sarkisian as better coaches in his mind.
Drama follows Lane Kiffin wherever he goes in the sport of football, and it does not matter if it's the NFL or in college football. The way he has left different jobs throughout his career has been nothing but messy, and some of the messiest exits in football history.
“Know what you’re getting, he’s had five of the most messiest exits that I can remember in football,” Klatt warned about Kiffin. “Al Davis with the overhead projector. He had the Tennessee disaster. He gets fired on the tarmac. Nick Saban tells him to beat it before the National Championship game. He didn’t even let him call plays. He’s like, ‘get out of here.’ And now he leaves right before the playoffs.”
Kiffin has grown into a much better play-caller and coach than he was during those early exits, but an exit, as we saw with Ole Miss and heading to LSU, shows that he still attracts drama, and that aspect has not gone away yet.
