TAMPA, Fla. — When Lane Kiffin looks back on his controversial move from Ole Miss to LSU, he views it as a major positive — not just for him.
“In a lot of ways, a lot of people won,” Kiffin said Thursday during SEC media days. “A lot of coaches either stayed or came. They were able to keep Pete Golding as the head coach. … Players got a lot of really big contracts at both places. Assistant coaches did. Both places are talked about a lot as premier programs heading into next year.”
Golding made pretty much the same point Wednesday, which means Kiffin’s argument isn’t merely an attempt to spin a lightning-rod moment into an all-around victory. It also leads to an obvious question.
Nearly eight months after one of the wildest coaching moves in recent memory, who are the winners and losers from the butterfly effect Kiffin kicked off by leaving Oxford for Baton Rouge? Here’s our attempt at ranking them, from biggest winners to biggest losers (with one in the middle):
Winners
Pete Golding: Golding, who spent three years as Kiffin’s defensive coordinator, said he “really wasn’t looking” to become a head coach. It’s hard to think of a better, unexpected first opportunity than taking over a Playoff team at age 41. The fact that his starting quarterback, Trinidad Chambliss, is ranked the best in the country by The Athletic makes things even better.
Lane Kiffin: Aside from the $4 million raise he earned by changing jobs within the conference, Kiffin went from a program that’s traditionally in the bottom half of the SEC to one that has won three national titles this century under three different coaches. He took over arguably the best job in the nation, and any ceiling he had at Ole Miss doesn’t exist at LSU.
LSU: Brian Kelly never fit at LSU and was never going to, either. But if you’re going to fire a coach for going 34-14, you better get it right. Kiffin was the biggest name on the carousel with the highest floor and ceiling, and he brought the nation’s top transfer class to the Tigers. Although there’s no guarantee Kiffin will win big, he has given the program hope.
Coaches from the American: Kiffin picking LSU provided bigger opportunities for the top Group of 6 coaches. One feasible scenario from November had Tulane’s Jon Sumrall going to Auburn and South Florida’s Alex Golesh slotting into Arkansas. Instead, Kiffin’s decision kept the Florida job open, allowing Sumrall to join the Gators and Golesh to end up at Auburn. The domino effect sent Memphis’ Ryan Silverfield to Arkansas. All three (arguably) got better jobs than they otherwise might have.
Top transfers/tampering targets: Player salaries are generally kept secret, but we can safely say that, as Kiffin said, many of them got raises to stay or leave. If Ole Miss is considering suing Princewill Umanmielen and Devin Harper over unpaid buyouts after they followed Kiffin to LSU, we can assume they were highly compensated for the move. LSU signed our No. 1 transfer class, including Arizona State quarterback Sam Leavitt, and the ripple effects hit the market as a whole. We’ll come back to that, but here’s one downstream effect: As Golesh leveled up to Auburn, the 13 players he brought with him from USF leveled up, too. Quarterback Byrum Brown and his teammates probably weren’t taking pay cuts to go from the American to the SEC.
The media: For some unknown reason, many people apparently have a lot of thoughts and big feelings about Kiffin. That means the will-he-won’t-he drama was, admittedly, good for business if you write and talk about college football for a living. Even Vanity Fair got on board, giving the publication a very different audience than usual. The intrigue hasn’t left; SEC Network had a countdown clock Thursday until Kiffin took the media stage. Anticipation is only going to build heading into Kiffin’s return to Ole Miss with LSU on Sept. 19.
Lane Kiffin tells the story of Miss Terry bringing holy water to Tiger Stadium in Nick Saban’s return 😂 pic.twitter.com/fp79CVHbxZ
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) July 23, 2026
Politicians: Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry didn’t look like a winner after Kiffin got the kind of contract Landry said LSU’s next coach would not get. The senators in Washington, however, have used the Kiffin saga as a talking point to show why they need to act to protect college sports. The Senate bill has a Kiffin Rule that would prevent coaches from leaving jobs during the season.
Losers
Trinidad Chambliss: He lost his offensive-minded head coach and wunderkind coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. (who followed Kiffin to LSU), plus a promising young blocker (Harper) and what would have been one of his top returning receivers (Winston Watkins Jr.). Granted, Chambliss tops our College QB Tiers and might be good enough to shrug off the departures on his way to the Heisman Trophy anyway. But it’s hard to view him as a winner in this exercise.
College QB Tiers: Trinidad Chambliss is No. 1
Antonio Morales
Dabo Swinney: The Clemson coach went off (with receipts) after Ole Miss poached linebacker Luke Ferrelli, who had already started classes after transferring to Clemson. But why did Ole Miss need a new linebacker like Ferrelli in the first place? Because linebacker TJ Dottery followed Kiffin from Ole Miss to LSU. That means we can trace another one of the offseason’s biggest storylines to Kiffin’s departure. Keep that in mind if Swinney’s defense struggles this season, including in Clemson’s opener against … LSU.
Arkansas: Coaching hires are a crapshoot, and it’s especially risky and foolish to start naming winners and losers before Year 1 has kicked off. That said, Silverfield’s hire did not exactly excite Arkansas fans, and they still don’t seem very fired up about a coach who’s still undefeated in his new job. It’s hard to shake the perception that the Razorbacks missed out on Golesh and that things might have unfolded differently if Kiffin hadn’t picked LSU.
???
Ole Miss: The Rebels went to the CFP semifinals after Kiffin left, so we can’t call them a loser. But we also can’t call them a winner. Maybe Ole Miss would have made an even deeper run with Kiffin, and there’s more long-term uncertainty around a first-time head coach like Golding than a veteran like Kiffin. Regardless, Ole Miss won at least one point: The Rebels no longer have to wonder about their coach flirting with other programs.