TAMPA, Fla. -- LSU coach Lane Kiffin said he now regrets how he handled his messy exit from Ole Miss before the Rebels' surprising run in the College Football Playoff last season.
Instead of fighting to coach the Rebels even after he had reached a deal to replace Brian Kelly at LSU, Kiffin says he should have walked away when Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter told him no. "Yeah, I do," Kiffin told ESPN on Thursday.
"But I think that's a good thing that I look at life that way now, instead of saying, 'No, I don't. I was right.' I look at things always now, like, how could I have done them better?
But it's also easier when you're further removed. There's no emotion involved." After guiding the Rebels to an 11-1 record during the regular season, Kiffin weighed whether to accept head coaching positions at Florida or LSU or stay at Ole Miss.
After telling Carter he was leaving for SEC rival LSU, Kiffin spent two days fighting to coach the Rebels in their first CFP appearance. "I wish I would have gone in when I met with Keith and said, 'I've made the decision to go,'" Kiffin said.
"I wish I would have just said, 'Hey, I'd like to coach the team,' and he'd say, 'No.' And I'd say, 'Hey, OK, I appreciate it.' [I wish I'd] move on [and] never even discussed it again." Kiffin said he later spoke about his messy departure with motivational speaker Kevin Elko, who told Kiffin that he was "trying to do something impossible." "[Elko] said that's really like you're in a marriage," Kiffin said. "You're leaving the marriage that she thought was great.
It was great for six years, and you're leaving it in order to go to another woman who she despises. "Oh, but let me stay in the house for a couple more weeks with the kids, and I might bring some of the kids with me.
You're OK with it, right? And then I'm going to leave.
And then it's going to be like, 'I understand.' There was no way to do what I was trying to do." Kiffin's relationship with Ole Miss became even more contentious when he wouldn't allow all his assistants who joined him at LSU to return to coach the Rebels during the CFP. "Yeah, there's another way," Kiffin said.
"I could have let none of them go. I don't know.
Ask people how that Georgia game would have gone [Ole Miss beat the Bulldogs 39-34 in a CFP quarterfinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl]. So, I think they should be really appreciative, but I also understand that everybody looks at things from where they're at." Kiffin said he has cordial interactions with Carter at SEC meetings this year.
Golding, who had worked as Kiffin's defensive coordinator before he was promoted, told ESPN on Wednesday that he has no ill feelings toward his former boss. Golding said he "had one issue about what he was doing to the staff." "I don't expect Pete Golding to agree with everything I do, nor would I agree with everything he said in press conferences during that transition," Kiffin said.
"That's not going to happen. It's not my job to do what he wants.
It's not his job to do what I want." Kiffin was also criticized in May for telling Vanity Fair that some elite recruits weren't interested in playing at Ole Miss because of its lack of diversity. "That was a poor usage of a term that I believe, just like many coaches that have been there before, was factual," Kiffin said.
"But over the course of a long interview, was bad timing and bad usage of the word. It is what it is.
I apologized when I said it, and [I'm] moving on." LSU plays at Ole Miss on Sept. 19 in what is expected to be one of the most heated games of the season.
Not coincidentally, Kiffin has posted on X only once since May 11, the day the Vanity Fair article was published. His only post since then included a photo of Michael Jordan with the caption: "They have no idea what you are becoming.
Time to go ghost." Kiffin said he took on a challenge from his son, Knox, who told him he was spending too much time on social media. Kiffin compared his decision to abstaining from alcohol and leaving toxic relationships.
While introducing Kiffin at Thursday's SEC media days, conference commissioner Greg Sankey said, "Someone give Knox a hug for me." "I think as I look back over my life, one of the things that has been great is subtracting things as you get older," Kiffin said. "I think that's a big part of growth.
If you really want to keep growing, a lot of people add things as they go versus subtracting things that are issues." During Kiffin's session with the media Thursday mo