Lane Kiffin’s debut at the helm of the LSU Tigers will be unforgettable for a variety of reasons. Among them was the lengthy weather delay that led to kickoff taking place roughly two hours after the originally scheduled time. After LSU blew the Clemson Tigers out of the water with a 51-10 rout in Death Valley, Kiffin revealed he was on board with the long delay.
In fact, the home team’s head coach was asked and didn’t give the green light for the game to resume earlier. As a result, college football fans had to wait longer, Clemson players were forced to stay idle in a hostile away locker room for hours, and it all helped the home team crush the visitors with a memorable scoreboard in NCAA football. It wasn’t luck; it had Kiffin’s hand all over it.
“That [away] locker room sucks over there. This is a real thing. Even when they said ‘Hey, you want to shorten the 90 minutes when we come back?’ I said ‘No, leave it all there. We’ll go out at midnight.’ If you haven’t figured out my competitiveness in order to win,” Kiffin said during his postgame press conference.
“If I’m going through all that other stuff for two players (Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris) nationally, if I think 90 minutes is going to help us win the game, I’m certainly going to sit in the locker room for 90 minutes.”
A sign signaling a lightning delay at Tiger Stadium on September 05, 2026.
Kiffin still won’t mention Ole Miss
Months have passed since Kiffin’s chaotic, mid-playoff, headline-grabbing departure from the University of Mississippi to take the head coaching job at Louisiana State University. Still, neither side is letting go, and both are continuously going at each other’s throats.
During his first postgame media availability at LSU, Kiffin kept up a recent trend in which he steers away from naming his former school. Not Ole Miss, not the Rebels, nothing at all. They are now those who shall not be named by Kiffin.
“It’s great to be on this side. I’ve been over there [on the other end] a lot. Three times in the last place, two in Alabama,” Kiffin said on a question about being inside Tiger Stadium as part of the home team rather than a visitor. Kiffin stuttered before naming Ole Miss, but referenced his former school as “the last place”. “I’ve been over there when it’s been really intense, so I was glad to be on this side,” Kiffin concluded his statement.
What’s next for Kiffin’s LSU?\
“Imagine if we had pro players,” Kiffin jokingly—and not so much—stated at halftime of his season opener with LSU. Fans across college football may not have to use their imagination for too long. Although neither Wright nor Harris was listed by the Tigers in Week 1, they could make the team in Week 2 and moving forward.
LSU’s schedule will give Kiffin and company no breaks, and they will need every helping hand they can muster, especially the two pairs of hands belonging to players who signed NFL contracts not too long ago. In Week 2, LSU will host Louisiana Tech, coming off an 80-6 win in Week 1, in Baton Rouge. It will provide the Tigers with a chance to iron out details and give their starters some rest late in the game. They will need it.
In Week 3, Kiffin will walk his new program into the lion’s den in Oxford, as the No. 9 Ole Miss Rebels have had their former head coach’s return game circled in red for a long time. In Week 4, the No. 11 LSU Tigers will host the No. 8 Texas A&M Aggies at Tiger Stadium.
