Lane Kiffin, Theo Von clown Kirby Smart, Brian Kelly while discussing 'mysterious' LSU coach

Earlier this month, Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin did a bit of a media tour, appearing on multiple hugely-popular podcasts. That included an hour-and-a-half sitdown on the “This Past Weekend” podcast with stand-up comedian and MTV’s Road Rules alum Theo Von.

During the entertaining back-and-forth from inside the Ole Miss athletic complex in Oxford, Kiffin and Von often veered off topic and riffed about a multitude of topics, often at the hilarious expense of some of Kiffin’s fellow SEC head football coaches.

One of those instances occurred after Von asked Kiffin about the SEC’s “most mysterious” coach, to which the Rebels headman suggested LSU head coach Brian Kelly.

“Maybe Brian Kelly. … I like Brian, not a South guy, kind of came in and so maybe people don’t really understand him,” Kiffin said. “He’s just kind of, he’s a little bit different than maybe your traditional (SEC coach), like Kirby Smart is born and raised SEC.”

At this point, Von — a Louisiana native that went to college at the University of New Orleans — took a shot at Smart’s traditional hair style: “Oh yeah, he cuts his own hair.”

“It looks like it,” Kiffin said amid laughs. “I’m definitely putting that in the (former Nick Saban assistants group) chat. … (It’s) like a bowl. And he still has the same haircut when he was playing. It’s never changed.”

Von: “And it’s a children’s bowl. Get an adult bowl.”

At this point, Von attempted to get back on topic by bringing up the infamous and cringy viral recruiting video of Kelly dancing with then-LSU recruit and current Rebels QB Walker Howard on what Von described a “Lazy Susan” roundtable.

“I thought this was a gender reveal,” Von joked.

Kiffin: “And it wasn’t like his first one. He did it the year before. I was like, ‘Do you realize you’re kind of grinding on the dude?’”

Rather than dwelling on that image, Von returned to his original point by suggesting Kelly’s mysteriousness is the result from having never coached in the SEC before the former Notre Dame coach arrived in Baton Rouge after the 2021 season.

Kiffin then doubled down, suggesting the divergent lifestyle and cultures between South Bend, Indiana and the Bayou country of Southern Louisiana as likely contributing to some SEC fans never quite connecting with Kelly, even as he enters his fourth season in Baton Rouge.

“I mean, you’re at Notre Dame, and then like LSU?” Kiffin concluded. “That’s as big a change from South Bend to Baton Rouge. And the SEC.”