Lane Kiffin Says Diversity Perception Hurt Recruiting at Ole Miss

Lane Kiffin drew attention this week with comments about diversity efforts that he said hindered recruiting during his time as Ole Miss head coach.

In excerpts from a Vanity Fair interview, Kiffin said some recruits told him, "Hey, coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren't letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi." He added that such concerns do not arise with Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Parents visiting campus over the weekend praised its diversity, Kiffin said. "It feels like there's no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that's the real world."

Kiffin expects no such issues in Baton Rouge, his new home as LSU coach.

He did not call Ole Miss uniquely racist or point to inherent diversity problems there. Still, he suggested the school's history shapes outside views.

Former ESPN host Sage Steele discussed the remarks on Tuesday's "Will Cain Country" podcast, hosted by Fox News Channel's Will Cain. Cain said he had never been to Oxford. Steele, whose daughter is a sophomore at Ole Miss, said she had not seen Confederate flags there.

Steele questioned Kiffin's timing. "I just think it's really fascinating that now he says that," she said. "But you were fine in Oxford all those years. You were fine in Oxford leading into last football season, saying 'It is just so much more than football' ... it's how the community has embraced him and his family. And he's come such a long way personally. ... And then all of a sudden, they hold your feet to the fire, and no, you can't coach the college football playoff after deciding to leave."

Confederate flags were common at Mississippi football games until the university banned flagpoles in 1997. The mascot Colonel Reb, tied to Civil War history, lasted until 2003. Ole Miss still uses the Rebels nickname and Ole Miss moniker, both linked to the state's slavery-era past.

Kiffin later clarified his words to On3. "I just hope [my comment] comes across respectful to Ole Miss. ... There are some things that I'm saying that are factual, they're not shots."

"I really apologize if anybody at Ole Miss or in Mississippi was offended by that," Kiffin said. "In a four-hour interview, I was asked a lot of questions on a lot of things, and Ole Miss has been wonderful to me and to my family. I was asked questions about the differences in recruiting, and I said a narrative that we battled there from some out-of-state Black parents and grandparents was not wanting their kid to move to Mississippi. That's a narrative that coaches have been fighting forever. It wasn't calculated by bringing it up."