Stop me when you’ve heard this before, but Lane Kiffin has once again walked out on his team.
The coach who left Ole Miss for LSU just when they were on the cusp of the College Football Playoffs (CFP), left LSU after a brief appearance in the ESPN broadcast booth during LSU’s bowl game against the Houston Cougars on Saturday night.
At the start of the second quarter, Kiffin spoke with the broadcast crew of Tom Hart and Cole Cubelic about his abrupt departure from Oxford and his settling in as the new head coach at LSU. Kiffin even credited the Rebels (and himself) for their 41-10 opening round CFP win over Tulane, calling it “the biggest game in the history of the state of Mississippi.”
However, instead of staying after the interview to watch his new team and offer some encouragement, Kiffin was spotted getting into a car and leaving the stadium shortly after.
This did not sit well with fans on X who immediately took Kiffin to task for leaving the game.
“Just like he leaves programs before the end of the season,” one user wrote.
“Kiffin’s ‘just built different.’ Ya know, like a psychopath that doesn’t care about anything but himself,” another wrote.
“Leaving a game early, already fitting in well with LSU fans,” observed another.
“What? I thought he said nobody should ever leave early,” a user wrote.
“That’s a bad look,” another user posted.
Kiffin’s departure brought back memories of his criticism of Ole Miss fans for leaving games early last year.
“I think it’s really important for the players when you come back out of the tunnel for the second half, or you go into the end zone, and you look up and see the difference,” Kiffin said. “I don’t really understand it. Maybe I’m naive to it, but if a concert is going really well… do you leave? Like if the products really bad and come back out in the second half and the stadium’s half empty—I understand when it’s a bad product—but I really don’t understand it.”