Lane Kiffin has repeatedly claimed that Ole Miss players wanted him to coach the team in the College Football Playoff despite having taken the LSU job, but two of the Rebels’ top players refuted that idea on Tuesday.
Starting center Brycen Sanders and star linebacker Suntarine Perkins both “quote-tweeted” Kiffin’s Twitter/X post from Sunday announcing he was leaving Ole Miss for LSU. In the post, Kiffin wrote that Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter denied him the opportunity to coach the Rebels in the postseason “despite the team also asking him to allow me to keep coaching them so they could better maintain their high level of performance.”
“That was not the message you spoke in the meeting room,” Perkins wrote. “Everybody that was in there can vouch on this.”
Wrote Sanders, “I think everyone that was in that room would disagree.”
Since the backlash to his departure for LSU began, Kiffin has consistently painted himself as a victim. But his former players at least do not seem to be buying it.
Sixth-ranked Ole Miss will learn its playoff fate on Sunday. It was announced Tuesday that offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. — who has followed Kiffin to LSU — will be allowed to coach the Rebels throughout the playoff under new head coach Pete Golding.
