After an offseason of big talk and bigger money, the bill comes due for Kiffin and LSU

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  Dan WetzelNov 13, 2026, 07:25 AM ET

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  Dan Wetzel is a senior writer focused on investigative reporting, news analysis and feature storytelling.

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For LSU, the goal of last Saturday's Tiger Walk was, as always, to go viral on social media. In this case, Lane Kiffin strolled, pregame, to Tiger Stadium flanked by celebrities (Kevin Costner) and former star athletes for the school (Shaquille O'Neal, Angel Reese, Paul Skenes and Olivia Dunne).

"The whole thing is that you create a program with people watching ... [who] say, 'That place is cool. I want to go there,'" Kiffin said on Monday.

It worked. Unfortunately, by the game's conclusion, a different kind of Tiger Walk was getting views as well -- Tiger fans exiting the stadium during the fourth quarter of Alabama's resounding 31-13 victory over LSU. The only bright side was that the volume of the booing decreased with each departure.

LSU is 6-3 in Kiffin's first season and still in search of a high-quality win. Critics, whom Kiffin has seemed capable of creating with ease, have saddled up. The pressure is mounting.

Or as a videoboard outside the Tigers' locker room put this week: "When you win, everybody loves you. When you lose, everybody has an opinion ... WELCOME TO LSU and THE DARK SIDE OF BEING THE VILLAIN!"

This is the dichotomy of LSU football nine games into Lane Kiffin's tenure.

The hype, the fanfare and the ability to win the attention economy have never been greater. Even before Kiffin decided to leave Ole Miss for the Bayou, and leave his Rebels team to compete in the College Football Playoff without him, the sport has been consumed by this coach and this school.

The quotes. The controversies. The slow descents off private jets set to music. The hand-wringing. The court cases. The roster poaching. The bidding wars. The expectation of championships.

And yet the on-field product feels like the same old, same old, leaving fans wondering when the gumbo will match the seasoning.

Preaching patience isn't easy, even if there's a good case for it. Despite the Cignetti-fication of the sport, it's still Year 1. And while LSU sits way down at No. 21 in the CFP rankings, Texas visits this week and a game at Tennessee follows.

Win those and LSU may still reach the playoffs.

But a late-season dash wasn't the expectation. Kiffin, ever the competitor, isn't backing down from that, to his credit.

"The loss at Tiger Stadium, yeah, that's bad," Kiffin said. "I feel bad for our fans and for the state. We're supposed to win. We're certainly not supposed to score 13 points in a game, ever."

LSU and Kiffin created an expectation monster they can't escape. You can hardly blame the fans for feeling duped.

Kiffin had rebuilt his career and his life across six years at Ole Miss -- finding on-field success, personal-life sobriety and a small town full of support. He had delivered arguably the best team in school history, a true national title contender.

He left on the eve of the playoff, walking away from all that positivity, for one reason: He believed LSU was such a competitive upgrade that he couldn't possibly turn it down.

"My heart was [at Ole Miss], but I talked to some mentors, Coach [Pete] Carroll, Coach [Nick] Saban, especially when Coach Carroll said, 'Your dad would tell you to go, man, take the shot,'" Kiffin said last offseason. "Take the shot. You accomplished a lot here."

This was business. And business was going to be so, so good. The steep price was worth it.

Conversely, LSU viewed Kiffin as some kind of savior, so talented and certain to succeed that no expense, financially or reputationally, would be spared in getting him.

They spent $54 million buying out Brian Kelly before handing Kiffin a $91 million contract, nearly fully guaranteed. They even agreed to cover the $500,000 in bonus money Kiffin would have earned every time Ole Miss won a playoff game. (The Rebels reached the national semifinals.)

LSU dropped an additional $40 million, at least, on the current roster. It's no wonder LSU athletics reported a $44 million shortfall for fiscal 2026 and is projecting another $26 million for fiscal 2027.

Money was just part of it, though. In August, when Kiffin wanted to sign players who had just been cut from NFL rosters, the school cheered on the effort and then fought the backlash from an irate SEC, which, in legal filings, threatened to throw them out after nearly 94 years of league membership.

This was business. And business was going to be so, so good. The price was worth it.

So, no, you can't fault the fans for wondering why it hasn't yet gotten good at all.

If LSU is so great it was worth Kiffin giving up so much and Kiffin is so great it was worth LSU giving up so much, then why can't they beat Kentucky and its first-year coach, let alone Bama?

This wasn't just a season of great promise; this was a season of the greatest promise. No one has ever hyped a new coach more. And so out come the knives.

"Who [I] walked in [with] wasn't the reason we didn't execute in the red zone," Kiffin said.

Another Saturday is nearly at hand in Baton Rouge. Another Tiger Walk. Another chance. Things will assuredly go viral, one way or the other.