Ole Miss coach Kermit Davis reacts to Lane Kiffin’s comments: ‘It’s really kind of a pitiful day’

Credit: Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports

Lane Kiffin doesn’t just leave schools; he burns the bridge on the way out of town and salts the earth as he goes, ensuring there is no path back.

That has certainly been the case with his move from Ole Miss to LSU. After building the Rebels into a national title contender, he skipped town to coach one of their rivals before the season was over, leaving a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. He compounded that distaste with comments in a Vanity Fair interview this week in which he inferred that the racial history and reputation of Ole Miss and the state of Mississippi made it harder to recruit, but that he doesn’t think that will be a problem at Louisiana State University.

“‘Hey, coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi.’ That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana,” Kiffin told Vanity Fair. “Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’s diversity feels so great: ‘It feels like there’s no segregation.’”

Kiffin apologized, but the damage has been done, and the LSU coach has been getting it from all sides since. That includes prominent people at Ole Miss. The latest of which is men’s basketball coach Kermit Davis, who felt it was “pitiful” how Kiffin’s comments would perpetuate a perception about the school he feels is no longer warranted.

“It’s really kind of a pitiful day, in my opinion,” Davis told Chris Childers. “When he said all these things, and I watched Oxford from first-hand experience embrace him in an unbelievable way, and he even said it – that ‘I needed Oxford more than Oxford needed me.’

“For him to kind of throw shade on historical paths of Mississippi and not talk about Ole Miss now, which is one of the most inviting campuses in America. … It shocked a lot of people, a lot of close friends of mine. I think there was a lot of people that were really disappointed.”