One day after Lane Kiffin opened up on why the location of Ole Miss hurt him in recruiting at his old school and how “diversity” has helped him at LSU, the college football coach apologized.
Kiffin, in a lengthy interview with Vanity Fair, revealed that unspecified recruits told him while he was leading Ole Miss that certain players would have issues coming to the school.
“[They would say], ‘Hey, Coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi,'” Kiffin told Vanity Fair. “That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’ diversity feels so great: ‘It feels like there’s no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that’s the real world.'”
LSU’s new head football coach Lane Kiffin gives an opening statement at an introductory news conference, Dec. 1, 2025, in Baton Rouge, La. AP Kiffin didn’t cite specifics about what he meant by the diversity between the two schools. Oxford has a population that’s over 66 percent white, while Baton Rouge is over half black, per the United States census. According to The Athletic, 19 percent of students enrolled at LSU in the spring of 2025 were black; 10 percent of students at Ole Miss in the fall 2024 semester were black.
He later clarified with the outlet that he was not taking “shots” at his old program and had meant to be respectful.
On Tuesday, in an interview with On3, Kiffin further clarified his words and made sure to note none of what he said was “calculated.”
“I really apologize if anybody at Ole Miss or in Mississippi was offended by that,” Kiffin told On3. “In a four-hour interview, I was asked a lot of questions on a lot of things, and Ole Miss has been wonderful to me and to my family. I was asked questions about the differences in recruiting, and I said a narrative that we battled there from some out-of-state Black parents and grandparents was not wanting their kid to move to Mississippi. That’s a narrative that coaches have been fighting forever. It wasn’t calculated by bringing it up.”
Ole Miss Rebels coach Lane Kiffin argues a call during the college football game between the Ole Miss Rebels and the Mississippi State Bulldogs on November 28, 2025, at Davis Wade Stadium in Starkville, MS. Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Kiffin’s midseason departure from Ole Miss last year was one of the biggest headline-making moves of the 2025 season, leaving for SEC rival LSU as the Rebels were about to embark on a College Football Playoff appearance. He called the move, at the time, “an extremely difficult” decision. A number of his former players went public with their dismay — and sometimes further — after his exit.
He’ll get to play coach against Ole Miss in Oxford on Sept. 19.
