When Florida was all in on going after Lane Kiffin to be its next head coach, most Gator fans seemed willing to accept some of the quirks and oddities that would have come with Kiffin. Florida fans knew things wouldn’t be squeaky clean, but they were willing to trade that for a powerhouse program that was going to be in national title contention.
But with the 2026 season set to get underway, the quirks and oddities that Florida fans seemed convinced they were ready to sign up for has turned into a full blown circus at LSU.
It has Florida fans wondering if the Gators dodged a bullet.
Florida and Lane Kiffin may not have been a fit after all
Lane Kiffin and LSU are now being sued by the SEC.
Just let that sink in for a second.
Essentially, the conference is fighting back after trying to impose limits on Kiffin’s quest to add players to his roster who had participated in NFL preseason games. The SEC enacted a rule against the practice, only for court rulings to claim the SEC couldn’t do that.
This new court filing comes on the heels of the SEC looking into every possile avenue to stop LSU, including rumblings they will have the rest of their member schools essentially blacklist LSU and stop scheduling them.
This comes on the heels of a Vanity Fair piece, “Keep Him Away From the Sorority Girls,” that chronicles Kiffin’s time at Alabama and included an alleged warning that Nick Saban gave his staff:
“You've got to keep Lane away from the girls that are in college. Just keep him away from the sorority girls. Make sure they've graduated college or are working a job."
Kiffin’s checkered past was why Florida wasn’t willing to give him a serious look back in 2021 when the Gators fired Dan Mullen. Part of the narrative that developed over the past four years is that Kiffin was a changed man and that he had evolved from the version of him most of us knew pre-2020.
He might not be chasing sorority girls, but this latest saga with LSU hints that he is still the villain of college football. It would be one thing if Kiffin embraced being the villain, but that is where the disconnect comes into play.
Kiffin is doing everything he can to burn college football to the ground, but deep down inside he still wants fans and media to praise him. He has no problem being shady, but then when confronted with how he departed Ole Miss, he tries to deflect.
Pick a side and stick to it.
Maybe LSU wins a national title this year, maybe they don’t. But even if LSU does win a title, Kiffin isn’t going to get the one thing he seems to want above all else:
Validation and respect.
And at Florida, there is still an ounce of self-respect in Gainesville that is required to make it long-term.
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