Lane Kiffin’s betrayal of the Ole Miss faithful to sign as the next head football coach at rival Louisiana State University is more significant than just the $91 million price tag. This situation exemplifies the current state of college sports in the American South, one that is dominated by the professionalization of coaches, athletes, and what it means for the states in which these colleges reside.
A coach earning $91 million over seven years, while the university also has to pay $54 million to buy out former coach Brian Kelly’s contract in October, is problematic for the flagship university of a state that ranks 50th in crime and economy, 48th in infrastructure, and 46th in education nationally. Kiffin’s contract and the surrounding controversies — his choice to leave the University of Mississippi before the upcoming College Football Playoff and his NIL and financial fund criticism of the university— expose the contradictions of football in the American South. It may be a deeply flawed system that doesn’t financially help any of the state’s residents other than the select few superstar players and coaches, but LSU and SEC football provide identity and joy for deep Southerners that external circumstances may not provide.
Kiffin’s contract at LSU is the second-highest annual salary for any college football coach, only marginally behind the University of Georgia’s head coach Kirby Smart. His previous contract still netted him $9 million annually, which left a foul taste in the mouths of Ole Miss fans when Kiffin decided not to coach Ole Miss for their run during the College Football Playoff. This behavior by Kiffin is irregular; both Tulane’s Jon Sumrall and James Madison’s Bob Chesney have accepted other head football coaching positions and are choosing to continue to coach their teams through their playoff runs. The increased professionalization of college football is the direct cause of this lack of loyalty; priorities are now more than ever focused on what is next and how much that contract pays.
With Mississippi and Louisiana constantly being ranked at the bottom nationally in income, education, infrastructure, healthcare, and overall opportunity, an interesting question arises: Should these publicly funded universities be spending tens of millions of dollars on football salaries? To understand this question, it is important to note that the money to pay these coaches comes directly from the respective universities’ athletics departments. The funding for these departments comes primarily through TV network deals, ticket sales, and wealthy alumni boosters who directly donate money to the programs. So, this situation is not directly stealing taxpayer dollars like estranged Green Bay Packers legend Brett Favre, who was involved in the welfare scandal in Mississippi that misallocated money toward a volleyball facility at Southern Mississippi University.
However, even if the money is not coming directly from the taxpayers, the university still has discretion over how to use the revenue brought in. Because of that, it is still valid to criticize how that money is being spent. It’s impossible to ignore the optics: Ole Miss and LSU are each ranked around the 92nd-best public colleges in the U.S., yet they choose to spend tens of millions of dollars on football coaches rather than to put that money back into their faculty and research, improvements that would increase the quality of education and expand opportunities for their residents.
At first glance, it seems obvious why a resident of Louisiana or Mississippi might not support such a high salary for a public employee when they are statistically more likely to be struggling financially themselves. Yet LSU fans were ecstatic when Kiffin was hired. An LSU fan site, Death Valley Voice, recently published an article titled “LSU fans are fired up for the future of this position group under Lane Kiffin.”
The truth is that this reaction stems from the unique role these SEC schools play in the Deep South. Outside of New Orleans, which has the Pelicans and the Saints, these states cannot financially support professional sports teams. As a result, SEC schools like the University of Alabama, the University of Arkansas, Auburn University, LSU, and Ole Miss are the de facto professional sports teams. They are often the only large-scale, shared cultural institutions for people in these places, so their success means far more to Southerners than it might to people in other parts of the country. This is also why the feeling of abandonment and disloyalty surrounding Kiffin’s departure was so exacerbated.
In today’s college sports environment, the “Power Four” designation is no longer accurate, because there is now a tier above the “Power Four.” Within the ACC, SEC, Big Ten, and Big 12, there are true “blue bloods” backed by the largest NIL funds. The NIL college economy has changed the game entirely. The ever-delayed and controversial SCORE Congressional Act and other legislative efforts are attempting to put guardrails on NIL, but for now, and the foreseeable future, it is the unregulated wild west of the sports world. Kiffin just happens to be someone who is taking advantage of that system.
When looking at the bigger picture, it is truly absurd how much college football coaches are making, especially in states with such major socioeconomic struggles. The truth is that, for many people in Mississippi and Louisiana, college football is one of the few reliable and communal sources of pride and entertainment. SEC football is the one of the biggest sources of Southern identity, and it is exactly why the Kiffin story is compelling. It shows how much people care about football success, but it also shows the inflection point that college football has reached, a point where the financial logic is drifting ever further from the communities that love it.
