He’d be getting raked over the coals either way. He was put in an impossible position, as were his players.
"I tried to coach them in the playoffs but Carter said no"
- Thread starter onewoof
- Start date
nope, he should go to give you a chance to let the new guy develop something they believe so they will stay.
This team is not winning a title this year. They are not talented enough, if they had been, Kiffin would not have left.
If you have more blue bloods losing key backups and role players in the playoffs because they have to enter the portal, then you might get some interest. If you did extended summer sessions instead of spring training (or in addition to spring training; athletes can't really complain now that they're getting paid), you mitigate the problem with the roster not being set until after May transfers. Plus, I can't imagine TV likes paying for playoff games where coaches are missing, and the only thing that matters more than blue bloods keeping their advantages is TV money.
The thing about Kiffin is that he believes he is the GOAT. He expects to be treated as such. The USC people said that about him when he was an assistant there.
Very big difference in a G6 school letting their coach finish out the season when their coach left for a SEC job and an SEC school doing it for a coach who is moving to a conference rival.
Big time. I’d like to see this extensive list of lame duck coaches that will be coaching in the playoffs.
Not when you're wanting the rest of the staff that is also going to LSU to continue to be in the building and mad at Kiffin for not allowing it. Throwing in the towel for a potential national title just because you are mad that a coach left you for a far superior job is stupid. Then using the excuse that you don't want said coach poaching your players as the reason for not allowing him to coach you through the playoffs but being ok with the assistants he is bringing to LSU being able to be in the building is just icing on the cake of the stupidity / lie. Do you think Weiss and company won't be doing the same thing Kiffin would be doing?
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Tulane and JMU coaches have both been told they can finish out the year by their new schools.
This is the second year that the playoffs have been in existence for a school as far down the totem pole as Ole Miss as far as job desirability to have a chance for this to happen. Until last year nothing but blue bloods who have zero chance of this happening were in the playoffs (minus TCU, who didn't lose their coach). There is not enough of a sample size to see what others would do within the P4 ranks, but out of the 3 total that have had the opportunity, only 1 threw a fit and didn't let it happen. Do you not think the g5 coaches are going to take their players to their new school as well? Kiffin will take whoever he wants to LSU whether he is in the building or not. They are cutting off their nose to spite their face.
It won't happen often. But no P4 school is going to let a coach leave for a conference rival and stay on to finish the season. It's just not going to happen. And it's not remotely comparable to a G6 coach leaving for a P4 job.
Why not? You keep saying this and adding zero context other than "trust me bro". Spell it out. Because they would be really mad that their program isn't on the same level? I mean there is no logical reason not to let them. It's dumb. If you are a bottom tier job in your league that sucks for you but to throw away the chance at a special season just because you don't like your station in life is stupid.
Listen to the national guys. They're all saying Lane is full of sh*t saying he should have been allowed to coach the playoffs. Even Nick Saban, who did say Lane should have been allowed to coach the playoffs, told Lane to hit the road when he left for FAU and didn't let him coach in the playoffs. And Lane was just an assistant then.
No, I want a reason. Not "national guys said so". There are others that say he should be able to coach the playoffs as well. Give me the reason. It's not because he's going to poach players because they want the rest of the staff to stay, which would be doing the same thing. Give a real reason. Not because some talking head said so with no context. I'm giving you context and you're giving nothing.
Because he would cause more problems and distractions if you let him hang around than you're going to have with him in Baton Rouge. Simple as that.
So your opinion is they have a better chance to go further in the playoffs without Kiffin and all of the assistants that he is not allowing to coach than with him? That's definitely an opinion. Not one that I agree with. Good luck with half a staff worth of GA's in the postseason along with an OC that has probably never called plays in his life. Kiffin has been a distraction for the past month and they have not lost a game.
They weren't going to go far even if Kiffin was staying. But with him leaving, their best chance is to move the 17 on.
And good luck cobbling together something functional from what’s left after losing both Kiffin and Weis, in 1~1.5 weeks. Playoffs start 2 weeks from Saturday. Practices will begin next week.
This is the most parity the sport has ever seen. They were toe to toe with the #1 seed in the SEC on the road a month ago and lost 1 game. They could 100 % go all the way if they were not threatening the best thing that ever happened to them 3 weeks prior to the regular season ending. They created this circus. Kiffin just reacted the way a troll does when you instigate them. Their best chance was to act like the program they actually are instead of the program they are in their own minds. Try not p*sing off the best coach in your school’s history and allowing him to possibly do something special instead of inviting him to burn the entire building down on the way out because you think you’re in the same stratosphere of job as LSU. There was never a decision to be made about Kiffin leaving. He told LSU he was taking their job 2 weeks ago. He had to lie to Ole Miss just to be able to finish the regular season, which is insane.
Let’s say the roles were reversed you think LSU is letting someone coach them through the playoffs that ditched them for OM? How about if Lebby ditched State for OM on the cusp of a playoff bid? You letting him hang around an coach for the playoffs?
LSU is not ever going to be in that situation because LSU is a blue blood in this sport and State/Om are the same level program. But the answer is 100 % yes if it for some reason did happen. Literally the only time in any of our lives we would ever have a chance to win a national title and I’m just going to throw it away because I’m mad? Ole Miss will never get this opportunity again for the rest of their lives more than likely. But yea let’s get that guy out of here so some career DC who is one of the only Saban coordinator assistants to not get hired as a head coach under him can get his era started with no distractions and roll the dice in the playoffs with a bunch of GAs. The problem OM fans and apparently some others are having is that you guys think this is going to be a regular occurrence for them going forward. It's not. At all. Kiffin was that program. They have been irrelevant for 50 years and will more than likely go directly back to that and that's going to be obvious very soon. And if we ever get lucky enough to find a coach as good as Kiffin it would be a once in a lifetime chance for us too and if our AD 17s it up the way theirs did I would want him fired.
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What problems would he cause that he doesn’t now have way more time to cause already?
Seriously? You don't think Lane would be a huge distraction at best if he was still in Oxford? Nick Saban already had to fire him once after initially trying to let him coach the playoffs. It just isn't going to work. Ever.
How did that work out for Saban by the way? Oh yea, he lost the game.
Precisely. I think we’ll find when the portal opens that several OM players would have had no problem at all playing for him, because they’ll be joining him at LSU regardless.
It’s such an unprecedented situation that you’re not going to get a 100% consensus from anyone on what the right move is.
Keith Carter seems like a fine AD, but he’s also an old-head that came through OM as an athlete in the 90’s without all this NIL and portal drama. I think he’s got blinders on with this situation. It would have been unfathomable to him to play for Rob Evans in the NCAA tournament after he’d accepted the LSU job. And in those days, it would have been. This is such a different era, though. Guys like Carter, Cohen, and other former athlete SEC AD’s who came up in the old system have no clue how players are connecting these days with their coaches.
My guess is Carter talked to a small handful of players, gathered a few dissenting opinions, and used that “split lockerroom” narrative to do what he wanted to do anyway, which is force Kiffin out and not pay his bonuses.
The offense was not good without him and Saban took a lot of heat for it. Deservedly so. It was a stupid decision.
There were multiple articles written about the offense not looking the same in that game without him and it was widely criticized.
It doesn't seem obvious to me that he would be worse than not having a head coach. He's going to want to win a championship. No, he probably wouldn't be as good as a Lane that inexplicably didn't have the opportunity to go somewhere else after being in the playoffs, but I think he'd clearly be better than Pete Golding?
I don't see a good option for them, but other than embarrassment, which is bound to be worse because Lane wouldn't be able to stop himself from bringing attention to the fact that he's basically getting one more 17 in before leaving for a hotter mistress, having him stay doesn't seem worse. If it was our coaching leaving for Alabama, I'd probably want him to coach and do the best we could, embarrasment be damned. It's already clear that Alabama is a more coveted job (although we don't seem to be as invested in pretending we're Bama's rival as they are with LSU), is it really that much worse if he keeps coaching?
ETA: I wouldn't be pissed either way. I'm a little shocked by how many people are strongly convinced there's no way you can let him coach in the playoffs. Granted it's worse with a person like Lane as opposed to your average egotistical coach, but still seems at worst a 50/50 call.
Again, Saban didn’t fire him. HE HAD ALREADY ACCEPTED A HEAD COACHING JOB. He was a part of every single CFP practice and gameplanning the week prior. 3 days before game is when he and Saban had their falling out.