The 2025 Ole Miss football team has been playing well and got a massive win this past weekend on the road against Oklahoma. One of the things that makes the Rebels unique is that they embody their head coach, Lane Kiffin, and his personality. Kiffin speaks his mind and trash-talks in games, and he went viral for trash-talking an Oklahoma defensive lineman, David Stone, after the Rebels won.
On Monday's episode of “The Pat McAfee Show,” Lane Kiffin talked about how much he enjoys trash-talking during games and why he believes players treat him differently than other coaches. He also said that he has had more than a few transfers and that because he trash-talks during games, it has made them want to play at Ole Miss.
“That happens a lot with me and players,” Kiffin said. “The interaction during the game. Defensive players, especially, will often say things to me during warm-ups. I don’t know; maybe they view me differently from other coaches. They kind of talk to me like they do a player. I embrace it, probably because I give it to them sometimes. So he said a lot during the game when he was on the sideline. ‘You ain’t going to score all day. I wasn’t really trying to do it on camera.”
Interestingly, this was a factor in why some players transferred to Ole Miss, but it shows that players love Kiffin's authenticity when he coaches.
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Kiffin elaborated more by saying, “Interestingly enough, I’ve had several players transfer over the years who have said, ‘Hey, one of the reasons was we love the way you interact with us on the other side during the game, and we wanted to play for a coach like that.’ So I think our players actually love it.”
Kiffin's authenticity embodies who he is. He called out Brent Venables after Venables said Oklahoma had the better team, and he trolled Kirby Smart mid-game about calling a timeout two weeks ago when Ole Miss played Georgia. This is who he is, and it's one of the reasons why he's seen as polarizing in college football.
