Ole Miss AD Keith Carter laments 'really tough' ending to Lane Kiffin era in Oxford

Lane Kiffin‘s chaotic exit Sunday after six seasons at Ole Miss has been the talk of the sports world, with many college football pundits attacking the new LSU coach for how he handled the entire divorce. ESPN’s Paul Finebaum has even taken to calling Kiffin “college football’s version of Kim Kardashian.”

All the while, Kiffin’s former boss, Rebels athletic director Keith Carter, has stayed relatively quite on the controversial ending, only recently calling out several inaccuracies in Kiffin’s personal account of how everything went down behind the scenes in Oxford ahead of Sunday’s departure. Carter continued to correct the narrative and expressed regret for how Kiffin’s exit ultimately played out during a recent sit-down interview with ESPN’s Marty Smith, which Smith shared Thursday on social media.

“You can’t deny the success. You can’t deny the wins. You can’t deny the program is in a much better place than it was when Lane got here,” Carter said, according to Smith. “I just wish the end would have been handled better, some of the last minute stuff that happened, and is still ongoing a bit — I wish was different. … We can look at the success as tangible and real … Just, man … the exit was really tough.”

While he didn’t elaborate much, Smith suggested Carter’s biggest issue with how Kiffin handled his exit was the reported move to poach much of Ole Miss’ current offensive staff. Kiffin claimed he dragged out his announcement decision past its originally-scheduled date Saturday due to ongoing negotiations with Carter in an effort to coach the Rebels in this year’s College Football Playoffs. Unfortunately, that mission devolved amid allegations Kiffin reportedly gave several Ole Miss offensive assistants an ultimatum to either join him on his Sunday flight to Baton Rouge or get left behind completely.

Keith Carter, Ole Miss players refute Lane Kiffin claim team wanted him to coach College Football Playoffs

Carter publicly rebuked Kiffin’s narrative, specifically that he was still working to stay on through Ole Miss’ pending Playoff run, earlier this week in an interview with SuperTalk Mississippi.

“Yeah, there’s been a lot of things he’s said publicly that I’m not sure are totally accurate,” Carter said. “I think that both coach and his representation knew several weeks ago that coaching in the Playoffs was not going to be an option if he was not the Ole Miss head coach.”

Further disputes of Kiffin’s narrative came out Wednesday evening from several Ole Miss players, including defender Suntarine Perkins denying it outright: “That was not the message you said in the meeting room,” Perkins wrote on X/Twitter. “Everybody that was in there can vouch on this.”

Carter moved to quickly to name Rebels defensive coordinator Pete Golding as the team’s new head coach, and spent the next several days working behind the scenes to keep much of this year’s Ole Miss staff together through the Playoffs, including offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr.

Weis was among several Rebels assistants that flew down to Baton Rouge with Kiffin on Sunday, along with co-OC/tight ends coach Joe Cox; receivers coaches George McDonald and Sawyer Jordan; defensive analyst/linebackers coach Chris Kiffin; and head strength coach Nick Savage. All are expected to be apart of Kiffin’s first LSU staff, though Weis agreed to remain with Ole Miss through its CFP run.