OXFORD — So I’ve heard this question several times this week: “Is this LSU-Ole Miss game the biggest college football game you have ever covered?”
Rick ClevelandWell, no. It’s not even the biggest in the last 10 months. The Ole Miss-Georgia Sugar Bowl playoff game was bigger. The Miami-Ole Miss Fiesta Bowl was still bigger. Now then, this might be the most anticipated regular season game I’ve ever covered. No question, it would be in the first sentence of any conversation of that nature.
This much is certain: This will be the strangest college football game I have ever covered. And by strange, I refer to all the bizarre surrounding circumstances – all the, for lack of a better term, football incest.
No. 7 LSU vs. No. 8 Ole Miss, two teams with star power and national championship hopes, make this the national game of the week. But you factor in Lane Kiffin returning to the scene of what Ole Miss fans consider his unforgivable betrayal, former Ole Miss stars now playing for LSU and so many other extenuating circumstances and you have a football tempest. Indeed, Shakespeare would have a ball with this scenario. Had football been a sport in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Shakespeare might have written this play. This game has many of the elements of a Shakespeare masterpiece: betrayal, revenge, corruption, incest – you name it.
LSU head coach Lane Kiffin reacts during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Louisiana Tech in Baton Rouge, La., Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. Credit: AP Photo/Matthew HintonLet’s put it this way: When I got into this business about a hundred or so years ago, I never imagined covering anything quite like this. How is this bizarre? Let us count the ways:
Mississippi head coach Pete Golding directs his players before the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football playoff semifinal game against Miami, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin) Credit: AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin Just this Tuesday in Baton Rouge, LSU defensive end Princewill Umanmielen was served court papers pertaining to the $550,000 lawsuit Ole Miss filed against him for allegedly breaking the terms of his contract at Ole Miss. Umanmielen led Ole Miss in sacks with nine last season. He already has five for LSU. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who also seems LSU’s de facto athletic director, then posted about the Ole Miss athletic director on social media: “Keith Carter could have saved Ole Miss some money and waited until Saturday. He’ll be easy to find in the Ole Miss backfield often!” Umanmielen is one of four former Rebels who helped Ole Miss to 13 victories last season. Others are linebackers T.J. Dottery, guard Devin Harper and wide receiver Winston Watkins. All are key players. LSU fans might term them opportunists. Ole Miss fans believe them traitors. Of course, what Ole Miss fans resent most is that Kiffin tried his best to take Heisman candidates Trinidad Chambliss and Kewan Lacy and several other Rebels to Baton Rouge with him, as well. They still play for the Rebels. Much has been made of the former Rebels – players and assistant coaches – now at LSU. But two former Tigers now play for Ole Miss: running back JT Lindsey and offensive lineman Carius Curne. Yes, the former Ole Miss coaches now at LSU know all about Ole Miss’s personnel, but one of Pete Golding’s key off-season hires was Frank Wilson, LSU’s star recruiter and the interim head coach after Brian Kelly’s dismissal last year. Head coaches Kiffin and Golding both coached under Nick Saban at Alabama, and then Kiffin hired Golding away from Saban at Ole Miss. They know each other’s tendencies inside and out. Here’s the crazy part: Golding now lives in Kiffin’s old house. You couldn’t make it up. And you can bet on this: For all the nice things Golding has said about Kiffin this week and in the past, he still burns inside because of the manner in which Kiffin tried to sabotage the Ole Miss program after he left. Want more? Landry Kiffin, Lane’s daughter, remains a student at Ole Miss and has complained on social media this week about vulgar signs around Oxford and posts on social media about her and a former Ole Miss football player and a sexual relationship that didn’t happen. ”I opened my phone this morning to pictures of banners on houses around Oxford posted on different accounts saying really inappropriate things about me,” Landry Kiffin said. “… I think that turning a girl into the punchline of a sexual joke because you’re upset at somebody she’s related to should not be okay.” Landry Kiffin dates Whit Weeks, an LSU linebacker. With all the intrigue, a record crowd is descending upon Oxford, with or without game tickets. Oxford’s population is about 26,600. Estimates are 200,000 – and perhaps even 300,000 – will clog the roadways, the Oxford Square and the Ole Miss campus. By midafternoon Friday, traffic was insane and getting worse by the minute. Security has been beefed up with extra officers from the state Department of Public safety and police from Mobile and New Orleans for the Mardi Gras-like weekend. From above, Oxford must look like a stepped-on ant bed. Back to Shakespeare: The bard’s plays, while heavy on incest, betrayal and corruption, also featured much hilarity. Ole Miss coaches found some humor this week when Kiffin listed $5 million transfer quarterback Sam Leavitt as “doubtful” because of an unspecified injury. “That’s Lane being Lane,” was the general reaction, along with laughter, in the Ole Miss camp. “We can’t complain much. He did that s— all the time when he was here,” an Ole Miss athletic official told me.Kiffin was an Ole Miss hero in this town then. He is public enemy No. 1 now. In the minds of Ole Miss fans, Shakespeare’s Brutus had nothing on Lane Kiffin. Et tu, Lane?
A crew sets up for ESPN’s “College GameDay” in the Grove on the University of Mississippi campus on Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. Credit: Aaron Lampley/Mississippi TodayHence then, the article about shakespeare could have written this lsu ole miss football plot was published today ( ) and is available on Mississippi Today ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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