Rick Pitino Questions CFB After Lane Kiffin Leaves Ole Miss for LSU Ahead of CFP

Rick Pitino is all of us.

The St. John's head coach expressed confusion over LSU's hiring of Lane Kiffin during the 2025 season, with Ole Miss heading to the College Football Playoff:

He has a point. The Kiffin situation in particular has been quite the spectacle, and quite the ordeal.

For weeks, he's been linked to LSU's coaching vacancy and was coy about his future plans, abstaining from a public commitment to Ole Miss beyond the season. He was clearly hoping to take the LSU gig but remain the 11-1 Rebels' head coach for the Playoff, a scenario the school wasn't interested in accommodating.

"I was hoping to complete a historic six season run with this year's team by leading Ole Miss through the playoffs, capitalizing on the team's incredible success and their commitment to finish strong, and investing everything into a playoff run with guardrails in place to protect the program in any areas of concern," Kiffin said in a statement Sunday. "My request to do so was denied by [athletic director] Keith Carter despite the team also asking him to allow me to keep coaching them so they could better maintain their high level of performance. Unfortunately, that means Friday's Egg Bowl was my last game coaching the Rebels."

The saga is now mercifully over. The fact that it existed in the first place remains confounding.