Lane Kiffin leaving Ole Miss to join the LSU Tigers as their head coach has been arguably the biggest news of the season. He was doing very well at Oxford and had built one of the best rosters in college football.
When he left, the Rebels were 11-1, had won the Egg Bowl, and were headed for the playoffs with one of the most complete teams in the SEC. Kiffin did all that with the limited resources he had at Ole Miss.
Now that he is with a much bigger program, the expectations are higher. Kiffin is expected to deliver similar or better results with the Tigers, and according to ESPN’s Matt Moscona, he can do that very easily.
On 104.5 ESPN, Moscona talked about the new playbook that Kiffin will use to build a championship-caliber roster at LSU. He reflected on how Kiffin was able to build a playoff team with the resources of Ole Miss.
He claimed that Kiffin will not try to build a roster from scratch, which will include signing players out of high school and working his way up with them. Now, he has more resources, and Kiffin will likely use them to get great players from the transfer portal.
“Lane Kiffin is looking at this, saying, ‘I built a playoff roster in Oxford, Mississippi with Ole Miss’ resource,” Moscona said. “Give me LSU’s resources and watch what I can do. I can build a national champion, not just a team that’s gonna make the 12 team playoff, but a team that can win championships and do it through a portal based off of their evaluation.”
Lane Kiffin doesn’t plan to build rosters through high school, he’s building championship rosters through the portal. 👀🏆
LSU + elite portal evaluation = national title potential#LSUFootball #LaneKiffin #TransferPortal @MattMoscona pic.twitter.com/fnMn805sPc
— 104.5 ESPN (@1045espn) December 18, 2025
Moscona believes that there’s a downside to building a roster with high school signees, as they’re least likely to stick around. So, the new playbook for Kiffin is expected to be more effective.
Frank Wilson on His Conversation With Lane Kiffin
After Brian Kelly was fired, Frank Wilson took over the responsibilities as the interim head coach. Then the Tigers brought in Kiffin to lead the charge. However, he didn’t want to rush things and opted to let Wilson lead the team until the Bowl game.
There have been a lot of discussions about Wilson’s future with LSU, and some have even vouched for him to be retained. Wilson, on the other hand, isn’t worried about the chatter.
“We’ve had conversations, and for me and for Coach [Lane] Kiffin, it’s let’s play this game on the 27th, and we’ll go into those details later. We just want to finish what we’ve started with this football team,” Wilson said. “Until then, nothing will necessarily happen in that regard.”
Pete Golding and the Ole Miss Rebels are reportedly trying their best to sign Wilson, as he brings a lot of experience. As of now, Wilson is solely focused on securing the Bowl win.
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