Lane Kiffin just sent a terrible message to his LSU team and he needs to fix it before it’s too late
LSU Tigers head coach Lane Kiffin made a misstep this week that’s a bigger deal than he probably realizes.
LSU head coach Lane Kiffin probably won’t admit it, but he sent a terrible message to his team this week.
Kiffin was very unhappy to find out this week that LSU’s game against Alabama on November 7 will be a mid-afternoon game (2:30 PM CT) instead of a night game like it’s typically been.
The reality is that ESPN’s deal with the SEC means only so many teams are going to get night games each season. Every team wants night games, which means not every team gets night games in the slot they want.
Most coaches and players tell the media they’d play in a parking lot at 6 AM if they had to.
Kiffin, though, chose to whine about the time slot and threw out some wild conspiracy that the SEC doesn’t want LSU to win.
“I never even considered that it wouldn’t be at night,” said Kiffin on the SEC coaches teleconference.
“I was joking to [LSU SID Michael Bonnette] earlier, saying that obviously the SEC wanted to change it from how it’s been to give LSU less of an advantage because of how well LSU plays at night and how intimidating it is to play here,” added Kiffin. “I was like, ‘If someone thinks the SEC wants us to win this year after what’s been going on, they must’ve just been on Mars the last four months.’”
I get that Kiffin feels like he needs to do some politicking, but he chose the wrong time to do it.
Every coach preaches “next play mentality” — it’s a must for an athlete to be consistently successful at a high level. Good play or bad play, you gotta go to the next play.
Kiffin isn’t showing his team how to handle adversity, he’s showing them how to whine about it.
The game time is locked in — it’s not changing just because Kiffin complained about it.
There’s a time and place (the offseason) to send that message to the SEC. Right now, Kiffin needs to worry about the message he’s sending to his team as LSU enters a four game stretch where they need to go 4-0 in order to make the College Football Playoff.
