During his introductory press conference as the new coach of LSU football, Lane Kiffin addressed the difficulty he had in choosing a program. He could stay at Ole Miss, where he put together the most successful stretch in modern program history, or head to LSU or Florida, two of the best jobs in all of college football. Those were the options we knew about.
Kiffin hinted that they weren’t the only ones, however, making mention multiple times during the presser of the four potential schools he could’ve chosen.
“It was a really difficult decision and when you’re in those difficult decisions and you’re torn, very torn, back and forth, and there’s multiple options,” Kiffin said. “There were really four different places that we had to think about in this.”
Logic would dictate that Auburn might have tried to lure Kiffin out of Oxford, Miss. again after he nearly bolted for that Tigers job in 2022. Penn State was—and is—the other top tier job available, and could have been a logical move if he wanted out of the meat grinder that is the SEC. According to a report by ESPN’s Mark Schlabach, however, it was a school in another league, and one that never actually opened: Florida State.
Citing sources “with knowledge of the search,” Schlabach reports that Seminoles athletic director Michael Alford quietly worked throughout November to try and bring Kiffin to the ACC, before making a decision on his embattled coach, Mike Norvell. Alford and Kiffin worked together at USC in the early 2000s, while Kiffin was on Pete Carroll’s staff. Had he been successful in landing a verbal commitment from the most sought-after coach in the country, Alford may have been able to scrape together the $54 million it would take to buy out Norvell (plus another $18 million for the rest of the Florida State staff). Instead, Kiffin rebuffed the advances, focusing on Florida and LSU as alternatives to Penn State, and on Nov. 23 the Seminoles announced that Norvell would be back for one more season.
It would have been an even more expensive move considering Kiffin’s compensation. In his LSU presser he said the four contract offers he personally received “were extremely similar,” with LSU standing out in terms of its NIL support for the roster. Kiffin is set to earn more than $13 million per year on a seven-year deal at LSU (though he claimed Monday he still hadn’t seen the contract details himself).
By late last week, Kiffin had turned down Florida, and on Sunday—after keeping the college football world on its toes through an entire weekend of rivalry games—he officially made the call to head to Baton Rouge.
Fallout around college football from Lane Kiffin’s move to LSU
Kiffin’s decision sent dominoes falling around the sport. Florida hired Tulane’s Jon Sumrall, who might have been a prime Auburn or Ole Miss target otherwise. Auburn tabbed South Florida’s Alex Golesh (with USF hiring Ohio State offensive coordinator Brian Hartline in turn). The Rebels promoted defensive coordinator Pete Golding to the full-time job, with his first game set to come in the College Football Playoff.
And Florida State sits and waits for a friendlier coaching cycle, after Norvell could only improve to 5–7 from 2023’s disastrous 1–11 campaign.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Lane Kiffin Was Quietly Pursued by ACC Power in November Before LSU Decision, per Report.
