🏈 Will Lane Kiffin win a national title at LSU? Opposing college football coaches sound off - The Athletic

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Will Lane Kiffin win a national title at LSU? Opposing college football coaches sound off

Kiffin was hired to bring LSU back to the sport’s upper echelon. Do other college football coaches think he can do it?

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No one produced more drama this past coaching carousel than Lane Kiffin, but how good of a coach is he?​

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When speaking with nearly 30 coaches about their takeaways from this past coaching carousel, The Athletic asked a simple question: Will Kiffin win a national championship at LSU? The coaches were granted anonymity for their candid thoughts. (Read the rest of the survey here.)​

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There are several reasons why people in the industry remain bullish on LSU, which has been viewed as essentially too big to fail in the past. Three coaches — Nick Saban, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron — have delivered national championships to Baton Rouge this century. Alabama and Ohio State are the only other programs with at least three national titles since 2000.​

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That wasn’t lost on one SEC head coach who was projecting Kiffin’s national championship chances after Brian Kelly flamed out.​

“He’s got a lot of money, he’s the only school in the state that has a logo like they do and they’ve always found a way to win,” the SEC head coach said. “I’m not saying you can hire a schmuck, but that’s one of the easier jobs to win a national title at, in my opinion.​

Kiffin was given a contract worth $13 million per year to bring LSU back to the sport’s upper echelon. That will require the 50-year-old
Kiffin to win at a level he never has. His only conference championships as a head coach came in Conference USA at Florida Atlantic.

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The overwhelming sense from the coaches we spoke to was that LSU’s advantages are simply too great. It’s the only Power 4 football program in a talent-rich state. After years of underwhelming name, image and likeness activity, the Tigers got their money in order and spent big on Kiffin’s roster build this offseason.​

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LSU brought in The Athletic’s No. 1 transfer class. Quarterback Sam Leavitt, offensive tackle Jordan Seaton and edge rusher Princewill Umanmielen were three of the best players in the portal and didn’t come cheap.​

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Tiger Stadium will be packed every game, and Kiffin will have a better in-state recruiting base than he did while at Ole Miss. Kiffin has always had great offenses; now he should have access to better defensive players.​

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“I think he’ll have every resource he ever wanted and desired and complained he did not get at Ole Miss,” an SEC assistant said. “He’ll have that at his beck and call. It won’t be for a lack of resources. In today’s world, I think he’s always been on the front end of the portal. … It won’t be for a lack of resources if he doesn’t get it done.”​

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Though Kiffin is polarizing, he can certainly coach. He led Ole Miss to the best stretch of success in modern history over the past six seasons with a 55-19 record culminating in a Playoff bid. Kiffin turned the program from SEC afterthought to nationally relevant.​

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He’s always had a cutting-edge offensive system and brought offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. with him from Oxford to LSU. ​

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He also retained defensive coordinator Blake Baker, who has turned around the Tigers’ defense over the past two years.​

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And Kiffin is one of the few coaches in the country who has been able to sustain success while primarily relying on the portal to construct his roster. It’s not easy to maintain a culture or get a team to gel when half the roster is shuffling in and out every offseason, but Kiffin has found a way.​

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“Combine how good a coach he is, love him or hate him, and now he’s at a place that has all the resources to do it. Yes (he’ll win),” a MAC head coach said.​

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“What Lane has done really well is learned from his previous experiences,” an AAC assistant coach said. “He knows what truly matters and that is getting good players in a good scheme. I think he’s leaving Charlie alone enough to do his thing.”​

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Even though most think he’ll win a national championship at LSU, there are still some questions. One Big Ten assistant coach has doubts about Leavitt, who didn’t make the leap many expected at Arizona State last season and has never been in a pressure situation like the one he’ll face this season.​

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“If he gets the right QB, I think he will (win),” the Big Ten assistant said. “But I don’t believe in the Leavitt kid, to be honest. He gets too emotional and makes too many mistakes. He actually reminds me of (former Ole Miss quarterback) Matt Corral.”​

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There’s the fact Kiffin has never really dealt with expectations of elevating a premier program like the ones he’ll have at LSU every year from here on out. Sure, he replaced Pete Carroll at USC, but the program was placed on probation before Kiffin ever coached a game, which was a major setback.​

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And when Kiffin’s teams have had sky-high expectations, he hasn’t necessarily handled them well. USC was the preseason No. 1 in 2012 and finished 7-6. Ole Miss was viewed as a College Football Playoff contender in 2024 after it went all-in to build a star-studded roster that offseason. The Rebels beat Georgia but lost to a horrible Kentucky team and a mediocre Florida squad and missed the Playoff.​

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And the reason Kiffin has never coached in the Playoff is that he left Ole Miss right before it earned its first CFP bid last December. The Rebels nearly reached the CFP final without him.​

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“With the resources they have there and how much money they’re spending now, he should (win),” another Big 12 assistant coach said. “But I got the feeling he won’t. It’s Lane. He can be his own worst enemy and has a hard time staying out of his own way. That part ain’t changed.”​

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“I think he will find a way to get in his own way,” another Big Ten assistant said. “He’s a really good coach, but he will find a way to stir up drama, and you can say that it doesn’t affect college kids, but it definitely does — and it also affects coaches. And it’s also the way he got there — we believed you that you were this reformed new man at Ole Miss, but you just showed us that you’re still the same old Lane Kiffin, just skinnier and tanner. I think there’s a lack of tolerance, so he better be really, really good or it could get loud quick.”​

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There will definitely be coaches rooting against him.​

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“God, I hope not, but there’s no reason why he shouldn’t (win) there,” an AAC head coach said, “so I’ll say yes.”​

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“I hope he doesn’t,” a Mountain West head coach said. “I was actually rooting for Ole Miss to win it after he left. Obviously he’s a good coach, but I’ll say no because I can’t imagine leaving my team like that in the Playoff.”​

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LSU has invested a ton of resources into Kiffin, so there will be some patience but … it’s LSU. Patience isn’t exactly its strong suit. ​

It’s doubtful he’ll get five or six seasons to show he can win a national championship. So we’ll probably find out the answer to this question within a few years because Kiffin will win a national championship or he’ll be shown the door.​

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“I think LSU is the best job in America,” a Big 12 assistant coach said. “I’m not betting against LSU.”​