LSU moved quickly after a 49-25 home loss to No. 3 Texas A&M: athletic director Scott Woodward fired head coach Brian Kelly on Sunday, calling the decision a consequence of unmet expectations at a program used to national-title contention.
Kelly leaves with a 34–14 record in Baton Rouge and what reports say will be a buyout in the neighborhood of $50–$54 million; associate head coach Frank Wilson was named interim while LSU begins a national search.
On Monday, renowned college football analyst David Pollack spoke about one name he believes is a no-brainer to take over the job at LSU: Lane Kiffin.
“To me, this job goes right to the top of the list. It’s not a rebuild at LSU. The expectation at LSU when you get hired is just like when Brian Kelly got hired. The last three coaches won national championships. Like, Ed Orgeron did that. Les Miles did that. Nick Saban did that. The state of Louisiana, the pride, the high school football. Now, that world has changed, obviously, but this is not a good job. This is a great job,” Pollack said.
“Lane Kiffin, I think it’s going to be very hard to say no to this job. I know Lane’s happy, and I said I didn’t think he would leave for Florida because he’s happy, he’s got everything he wants. Now, this is a different animal. I would make it harder for him to say no. I would throw a lot of zeros in his direction, and I’m going to make Lane say no.”
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LSU is a blue-chip college program with four claimed national championships (1958, 2003, 2007, 2019), 16 conference crowns, and a pipeline that routinely delivers top NFL talent and Heisman winners (Billy Cannon, Joe Burrow, Jayden Daniels among them).
However, the Tigers’ recent pattern amplifies pressure for any coach that comes to Baton Rouge: Nick Saban, Les Miles, and Ed Orgeron each captured titles early in their LSU runs, setting a near-immediate “win-now” bar for successors.
Kiffin is one of the highest-profile, proven SEC coaches available and already a short-list candidate for recent high-end openings.
He’s been publicly tied to Florida (now itself open) and has consistently been mentioned as a target for blue-blood programs whenever vacancies appear, making it no surprise to see his name at the top of the list for the LSU opening.
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While Pollack is right in this potentially being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Kiffin, the mechanics matter.
Kiffin has built Ole Miss into a top-tier, disruptive SEC program — his Rebels have never had a losing season, and he’s compiled a .729 winning percentage (51-19 record) in Oxford while posting nationally notable transfer and recruiting classes.
In 2024, Kiffin became the fastest coach in school history to 40 wins, doing so in 57 games, and this season, his Rebels currently sit at 7-1 and No. 7 overall in the AP Top 25 rankings.
That said, LSU offers deeper recruiting pipelines inside Louisiana, a fanbase with historic expectations, elite facilities, and, crucially, the financial firepower to outbid rivals.
For Kiffin, it’s a decision between continuing to build a personal program identity in Oxford or chasing the raw prestige and resources that come with coaching at LSU.