Much has been made of the way many of College GameDay’s analysts discussed Lane Kiffin’s decision to stay at Ole Miss or leave for LSU.
So much so that they felt the need to clarify Saturday that their shared agent, CAA’s Jimmy Sexton, had nothing to do with their impassioned defenses of the much-maligned coach and his decision-making.
To his credit, Pat McAfee was the lone GameDay voice bucking that trend the entire time, often saying there and on his own show that he wished Kiffin would stay at Ole Miss and finish trying to win a championship instead of leaving his players in the lurch.
Kiffin didn’t listen to McAfee, but he shared some insight into what was going on behind the scenes between him and the coach while the decision was still (supposedly) up in the air.
“The more I learn about it, the more situations I go through, it’s like there was no winning, I think, for this one,” said McAfee on Friday, speaking with Nick Saban. “But I still would like to restate, I was publicly and privately telling Lane that he should stay at Ole Miss, me, personally, just because I knew that there was potentially a lot of heat coming on the other side of it just by reading the tea leaves of the internet. But also having the opportunity to be, I don’t want to say a trailblazer, but somebody that builds a place and builds a town. You obviously know a lot about this, Alabama. Not you, but obviously, Bear Bryant was there. But from where they were, whenever you got there, to what it became, it’s like that’s a cool legacy as well.
“But granted, the way he talked about it, LSU was a one-of-one job.”
I was publicly and privately telling Lane Kiffin that he should stay at Ole Miss..
That would have been a cool legacy #PMSLive https://t.co/fZeEnUICi4 pic.twitter.com/7UhIKGoHdP
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) December 5, 2025
If there’s anything we’ve learned through this whole process, it’s just how much backchanneling is constantly going on between the most prominent voices in college football and the people they cover. In many other industries, this would be considered a shocking conflict of interest. But college football is always gonna do what college football is gonna do.