LSU vs OLE MISS PREVIEW PT.I: FEAR & LOATHING IN OXFORD
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By LONN PHILLIPS SULLIVAN
It was always going to be more than a game....
Saturday night between LSU and Ole Miss, taking place inside a Bermuda Triangle of hate known as Oxford, Mississippi, will be an event of such theater, high stakes drama, ingrained toxicity, and unleaded vitriol so heavy, so multi-faceted and layered, you'd think it was a soap opera based on Christian Bale's personal life.
We all collectively may need to take a shower after this one...such is the animosity, the bitter hatred from Ole Miss' entire institution and fanbase towards Lane Kiffin mostly, LSU for "stealing him", extended also to their former players who followed Lane & Chris Kiffin via the portal (Princewill Umanmielen, TJ Dottery, Winnie Watkins and Devin Harper now branded as "traitors", among other names...), and now, in defense of their program & new captain of the ship, LSU die hards have taken up their online battle stations against Ole Miss cultists....and the trolling, the memes, the neverending back and forth has been straight up Biblical.
The amount of disdain between LSU and Ole Miss was always high, but in the immediate throes of the Kiffin era, the hatred is at an all time apex....and it's all due to the head man himself, Lane Kiffin vs The State of Mississippi.
They don't just hate Kiffin because he left Ole Miss....they hate him for how he left:
Forget the fact these two teams traded assistant coaches & staffers back and forth, Lane Kiffin was the man who put Ole Miss on the map, delivered moments Rebels fans simply hadn't experienced and right as his project was about to be put to the ultimate test, the psychotic NCAA calendar forced immediate decisions from all sides during the biggest games of Ole Miss' season, and, at the conclusion of the regular season, Kiffin left for LSU....without coaching 2025/26 Ole Miss' College Football Playoff run.
Kiffin still feels he had a National Championship opportunity taken from him because of Ole Miss' pride, as well as the NCAA's illogical scheduling & logistical nightmare calendar (led by current and then-interim Head Coach Pete Golding, Ole Miss went all the way to the semifinals).
Meanwhile, Ole Miss feel wholeheartedly that "Lane Kiffin was trying to burn down their program" on his way out of Oxford, mostly by poaching assistants, staffers, and of course, players for his new project at LSU.
Now, Ole Miss brass, such as AD Keith Carter, believe Kiffin is definitely attempting to hurt Ole Miss' reputation, claiming his Vanity Fair quote about Mississippi's former Confederate state flag, longstanding ties with racism, and the KKK hurt Kiffin's ability to recruit young black men to his former school.
The quote caused a firestorm of media & online implosion, meltdown & circulation....the world is, and will always be obsessed with Lane Kiffin, even if they don't want to admit it.
While away from the screens, Kiffin operated as usual, building a #1 rated transfer portal roster, including former Ole Miss players DE Princewill Umanmielen (NCAA leader in sacks right now), WR Winnie Watkins (110 yards vs Clemson), LB TJ Dottery (2025 SEC tackles leader) and highly rated offensive lineman for the future Devin Harper, pulled the best playcaller in college football his way, too with Charlie Weis Jr, plus key trainer Nick Savage, Lane's brother Chris, RBs Coach Kevin Smith......almost all of the guys who made Kiffin's Ole Miss culture capable of winning at a rate that program hadn't experienced before.
In between those macro thoughts and visualization exercises, you also have AD Keith Carter and Ole Miss suing multiple former Rebels turned Tigers for "breaking agreed upon contracts" he claimed were signed before Kiffin and LSU poached these players....pursuing two specific Tigers for $500,000 apiece.
You have the whole insanity around the 2022 class eligibility fight from Kiffin and LSU...which included, once again, two former Ole Miss players Kiffin once coached involved in the whole damn thing: Dae'Quan Wright and Xzavian Harris (Ole Miss admitted they also tried to sign directly from NFL practice squads)...
The hypocrisy...
The madness...
The public insanity of Kiffin walking into a cauldron, surrounded by 30,000 people who all hate him....he's done that before, but never on this level...never with this much anger crashing & cascading upon his shoreline,
The ties run deep between LSU and Ole Miss, the familiarity from players on the field stalking each other's every step or the chess match between Weis Jr and Kiffin's LSU offense vs Pete Golding's Ole Miss defense.
That is why this game will be won psychologically as much as it will be won physically, and LSU possess a major mental edge:
As the home team, and institution of public grievance in this scenario, there will be plenty of home crowd / now or never pressure heaped on Ole Miss' shoulders entering Saturday evening:
They're facing their self declared ultimate nemesis, Darth Kiffin & his offensive staff just starting their LSU project, while Ole Miss' greatest ever player & best ever running back are in the twilight Last Dance of their college careers.....
....because of those factors, this game is more than personal for Ole Miss and their players in a way it will never be for Kiffin's 2026 Tigers.....Saturday night isn't even about the Rebels' 2026 season: Winning big with Trinidad Chambliss and Kewan Lacy, specifically over Kiffin's LSU, is about their brand's very survival beyond Chambliss and Lacy....Saturday night is the program's first test in a long, ongoing self examination: Will Ole Miss still be relevant without Lane Kiffin???
While Kiffin and LSU are constantly talked about, as he signs a #1 portal class, #1 QB, #1 OL, #1 DL, signs the #1 overall recruit of 2026's class, and collects more 5 star talents in a few months at LSU than he did across 6 years in Oxford, Kiffin's former school scowls petulantly in the corner, with the glint in the eye of an exiled rapist.....wondering why he left what he was building in Oxford and traded it for Baton Rouge...desperately wanting to teach Kiffin a lesson.
Will that unleashed, uncaged aggression and hostility towards their former Head Coach manifest itself in a victory for Ole Miss???
Or will that US VS LANE KIFFIN energy become more of a distraction, an obvious insecurity & emotional curse rather than the motivational rocket fuel Pete Golding's Rebels need???
As for LSU, they're arriving at this moment with a more poised, driven intensity, on the back of 2 vastly more impressive victories than Ole Miss' narrow shootout win vs Louisville or tame 41-9 showing vs Charlotte....
Offensively racking up 89 points over 2 games, 1,172 total yards, and defensively (counting starters only) giving up just 115 total yards & 3 points of consequence, all while looking like a stylish, renegade squad possessed by a street-fighting spirit, 2026 LSU still have things to polish and fix.
It may not always be pretty, but Blake Baker's medieval defense, alongside one or two unstoppable facets of the Weis/Kiffin offense (Sam Leavitt's legs & Trey'Dez Green's very existence), should be good enough to handle most teams...but now, facing a top 10 Ole Miss squad, taking on one of the top 2 quarterbacks and overall players in the country, Trinidad Chambliss, who devoured an undefeated, unblemished LSU defense last season in his breakout game (385 total yards & 1 TD pass as Ole Miss beat LSU's 23rd ranked defense 24-19), the Tigers will face their greatest test so far under Kiffin....and the stakes, the optics, the psychological power of the moment cannot be overstated....all we can do is sit back and celebrate it...because games like this, rivalries like this....these are the games, the personalities, the players, and the traditions that make college football special.
Sam Leavitt & Trinidad Chambliss...both dual threat weapons for either team...get your popcorn, get your gummy bears for this pair of superfreak athletes who can burn defenses on the ground or gut 'em downfield...capable of scoring from anywhere.
Dilin Jones vs Kewan Lacy...
Pete Golding's Ole Miss defense vs Charlie Weis Jr's LSU offense, squaring off for the first time against one another after years on the Ole Miss staff together.
After injury for most of 2025, LSU's All-SEC LB Whit Weeks is back now at linebacker for the Tigers...is Saturday night a situation where Weeks is placed as a spy on Trinidad Chambliss?? Or could that be former Chambliss teammate TJ Dottery cast in that role???
How will LSU defensive coordinator Blake Baker approach the game following last season's gradual, yet resounding defeat by 10,000 cuts??? Double down on his usual exotic, blitz-heavy scheme??? Or, read and react more as a defense with increased "bend don't break" ethos, ensure LSU keep Chambliss in front of 'em, prevent explosive plays and confine Chambliss to the pocket, which would soon become a tomb all of his own making......when finding himself surrounded by Princewill, Weeks, Ross, Geralds, Carpenter, Dottery, Keys, etc, Chambliss will think he's woke up in Michael Jackson's Thriller video.
I will answer all of those questions, and attempt to look at every angle of the most anticipated game of the college football year, there is so much more on the way, both articles and podcasts coming right at ya!
Get ready for the greatest game between two historic SEC rivals....and their first time meeting inside the Top 10 since 1962.....
WHAT WE'LL SEE ON THE FIELD + GAME PREDICTION UP NEXT
By LONN PHILLIPS SULLIVAN
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