Ole Miss delusion peaks as fans blame Lane Kiffin for Pete Golding’s misstep

When LSU hired Lane Kiffin away from Ole Miss is set up for a massive turf war between the Tigers and the Rebels. LSU got Lane Kiffin, and he brought the offensive staff and front office staffers with him to Baton Rouge. The bigger concern for the Rebels became what could come when the Transfer Portal opened, as Kiffin was always going to try to bring players with him, as every coach has.

Before the Transfer Portal opened, it looked like Ole Miss sent the ultimate statement re-signing key pieces in Trinidad Chambliss, Kewan Lacy, Devin Harper, Princewill Umanmielen, and several other players.

Ole Miss is blaming Kiffin for a Golding mistake

While it looked like Ole Miss did a good job with player retention, the last several days have dealt significant blows to that effort to making another deep run in 2026. This week, Ole Miss has lost Princewill Umanmielen, Devin Harper, TJ Dottery, Taren Hedrick, Da'Shawn Womack, Anthony Robinson III, Corey Amos, and others to the Transfer Portal.

The accusation out of Oxford is that Lane Kiffin, through agents, leaked the contract figures of incoming transfers to the Ole Miss players, which has been reported by On3's Ben Garrett, drawing responses from LSU reporter Matt Moscona.

In a world where Ole Miss's side of the story is right, and the players are leaving because they're upset about the fact that new pieces are being paid more money then Pete Golding made a massive misstep. The players on the roster were all re-signed and told how important they are and frankly, some of the players that Ole Miss is losing now are far better than any of their transfer additions.

The players that stayed when they could've bolted to LSU should've felt the love from Ole Miss, and they likely did when they re-signed their deals. Entering now indicates that something drastically changed, as they could've entered much earlier.

Making a simple X/Twitter search of "Lane Kiffin" will show just how unhinged Ole Miss fans have become over their former head coach.

Thus far, 19 Ole Miss players have announced their intentions to enter the Transfer Portal, and only Winston Watkins followed Lane Kiffin to Baton Rouge. Looking at what Matt Campbell did to Iowa State and what Eric Morris did to North Texas, taking every key piece is far more damaging than what Kiffin has done.

The reality of the circumstance at Ole Miss is that programs around the country are losing pieces they'd love to keep. Every player and every agent is seeing the numbers that programs are throwing at transfers which has led to some of these significant entries late in the cycle.

If Ole Miss signed these players to new contracts, we're likely going to see the same situation play out that unfolded when Demond Williams Jr tried to leave Washington. This is a new era with some of the craziest moves coming this offseason, and jumping out to instantly declare that Lane Kiffin is trying to tear everything down is unhinged before everything plays out.