PGA Championship third round tee times: Alex Smalley, Maverick McNealy hold the lead at Aronimink entering Moving Day
Smalley and McNealy hold the lead at the PGA Championship entering Moving Day.
Lane Kiffin faces heightened scrutiny as LSU's coach after past Ole Miss losses to Kentucky and Florida cost the team a CFP berth. A warning suggests that similar mistakes at LSU could lead to his dismissal.
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LSU's Lane Kiffin sent a firing warning after past Ole Miss mulligans against Kentucky and Florida originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
LSU Tigers football coach Lane Kiffin led the Ole Miss Rebels to their first CFP berth during the 2025 season, but a season prior, the team burned its chances to make the CFP field by losing to the Kentucky Wildcats early in the season, and the Florida Gators late. Ole Miss wouldāve made the field with just the LSU loss, or even a loss to the Tigers, plus one of the two. Losing both disqualified the three-loss Rebels. To this day, only 10-win three-loss teams have made the field.
USA Todayās John Adams had a warning for Kiffin as he embarks on his Baton Rouge journey: try losing those kinds of games at LSU, and youāll be let go before you can ever leave in the middle of a CFP run.
āKiffin has never faced the level of scrutiny thatās coming this season. Heās been in big-time jobs before, but LSU trumps all of that, especially after the way he left . Kiffin canāt help but poke the bear. He says things that are unnecessary. He inflamed the Mississippi situation with his comments in Vanity Fair. As much as he likes attention, I donāt think heās going to love being under the microscope to the degree heāll be this season. At Ole Miss, he mostly got a free pass for losing to Kentucky in 2024, or blowing a playoff bid that season at The Swamp. Donāt try that at LSU. Thatāll get you fired,ā Adams wrote.
Kiffin's losses to Kentucky and Florida disqualified Ole Miss from the CFP despite having a strong season.
John Adams warned that Kiffin could be fired if he loses critical games at LSU, unlike his experience at Ole Miss.
Kiffin will face greater scrutiny at LSU than he did at Ole Miss, especially after his controversial departure from Mississippi.
Smalley and McNealy hold the lead at the PGA Championship entering Moving Day.
Bryson DeChambeau is in serious trouble at the PGA Championship, facing a second missed cut.
Rory McIlroy posts a bogey-free 67 at Aronimink, five shots off the lead.
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Kentucky is on the schedule again, and while first-year Wildcats head coach Will Stein engineered great offenses on the Oregon Ducks, a loss to UK would be disastrous. Ditto for games against the Mississippi State Bulldogs, Auburn Tigers, and Arkansas Razorbacks, the latter two programs of which will be introducing new head coaches as well.
With teams like the Texas Longhorns, Alabama Crimson Tide, and Texas A&M Aggies, and the game of the season in Oxford on September 19, Kiffin would immediately put himself on the hot seat with a bad loss.
Kiffin signed a seven-year, $91 million contract, so the odds are, even if his seat gets hot, unless LSU completely crashes, we will probably see him in Louisiana until 2028. Heāll be owed 80% of whatever heās owed at any point if heās fired.
The Tigers are stuck with the Kiffin show, or the bill, for a long time.