Lane Kiffin’s decision to leave the Ole Miss Rebels in the middle of a College Football Playoff run to become the LSU Tigers’ new head coach has been heavily criticized.

The nonsensical college football calendar — December is the most chaotic month of the year for everyone in the sport — is the real villain in this story.

But nearly everyone outside of Baton Rouge, except for a few outliers, has decided that Kiffin is the bad guy because he wasn’t able to finish coaching Ole Miss this season while agreeing to become the head coach at LSU for the 2026 season.

ESPN’s Troy Aikman speaks on how he feels about Lane Kiffin leaving Ole Miss for LSU

ESPN announcer and Pro Football Hall of Famer Troy Aikman recently spoke to The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch on The Sports Media Podcast and Kiffin was brought up.

Aikman said that he doesn’t fault Kiffin for leaving Ole Miss for LSU before the playoff, noting that he also understands why the Rebels aren’t allowing Kiffin to continue coaching in Oxford.

“Lane Kiffin’s motivation? Is it his thought that it’s a better opportunity for him at LSU? Possibly,” said Aikman. “Is it money? Possibly. Is it lifestyle? Possibly. I can’t answer any of those questions. But whatever his motivation is, he feels like LSU is the right place for him. So I don’t fault him for that at all.

“I know there’s always hard feelings. Ole Miss did not want to lose Lane Kiffin. Once he made the decision to leave, now he’s a pariah. Let’s get this guy just as far away from us as we can. I understand that as well. Everybody gets a little bit jaded.”

What Lane Kiffin said about not being able to coach Ole Miss in the College Football Playoff

Kiffin explained at his introductory press conference a couple of weeks ago in Baton Rouge that his plan was to accept the LSU job and then finish the season with Ole Miss.

Rebels athletic director Keith Carter, however, shot that idea down.

“I had already made the decision at that point and informed [Ole Miss] Saturday night that this is what we were going to do (taking the LSU job),” said Kiffin at his introductory press conference. “That was a really hard conversation with (Ole Miss AD) Keith (Carter). Really hard. And we kept trying to work through, yes, there’s disappointment and that, but how can we — knowing that I’m going to be head coach of LSU for the future down the road — how could we do the best interest of the players and give the players the best chance to win and make a run at the national championship in the playoffs. And most likely, as I said, their most historic sporting event in the history of the state of Mississippi, a home playoff game, and it didn’t work out.”

“They just couldn’t wrap their head around doing that (letting Kiffin coach in the playoff),” added Kiffin. “And I understand it. I respect that. So that’s why everything took so long. I did not know the final decision that we couldn’t [coach in the playoff] until 30 minutes before that team meeting when he called over and said, okay, we’re going to go a different direction. We can’t wrap our heads around this. Unfortunately, which, again, I respect, and they said, you’re not going to be able to talk to the team and tell the team that you’re leaving. I hate that. I hate that I didn’t get to explain to the players why, but I also totally respect and understand the decisions they felt they had to make for the program.”

It’s clear that Kiffin’s decision to leave Ole Miss before the playoff wasn’t easy on him. But because of the weird college football calendar in December — in which the entire offseason is essentially crammed into the middle of the postseason — there was no way that Kiffin could make the career move he wanted to make for 2026 while also finishing the season at Ole Miss.

Instead of labeling Kiffin as the villain, maybe the focus should be on fixing the calendar so coaches aren’t put in this position again in the future.

LSU Tigers News

Ed Orgeron opens up on whether he’s going to join Lane Kiffin’s coaching staff at LSU

Could former LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron return to Baton Rouge?

Zach Ragan