New Details on the Exit of College Coach Involving the FBI

Just before the end of last season, staff at college football powerhouse were so worried about Lane Kiffin stealing the program's secrets on his way out that they called in the FBI to check for bugging devices, it has been revealed.  Kiffin stunned the world of college football last November when he quit playoff-bound Ole Miss to join LSU on a $91 million contract, leading to weeks of furious fallout.   It was reported at the time that Kiffin had given his then-Ole Miss staff an ultimatum when he left the program: join him immediately on the plane to Baton Rouge or forfeit the opportunity to get a job with him at LSU.   A few joined, but others stayed to finish the season with Ole Miss, who at the time were still in contention for the national championship and eventually went on to lose narrowly to Miami in the semifinals.

The outgoing head coach even claimed he was nearly 'run off the road' by scorned Ole Miss fans as he left Mississippi under a cloud, and now a program insider has revealed some stunning details about the exit.  Speaking to the Assorted Crackers podcast, Walker Jones - executive director of Grove Collective, Ole Miss's exclusive NIL program - opened up about LSU's attempts to poach assistant coaches and staff members to join Kiffin in Louisiana. 

He described it as "weeks and months of fending off" LSU, claiming they were "literally trying to burn [Ole Miss] to the ground."  He went further, saying, "I guess that's what you do if you're the LSU head coach." "You try to destroy your opponent, your rival. So I guess that's probably the way. Again, shame on me to think it was going to be anything other than what it was, but we battled and we were able to hold on to the majority of our roster and our players," he added.

"What people don't realize too is half the staff was going to LSU, so we literally had to have two different text threads, two different staff meetings. We had to ask coaches to leave the room.  We actually had the FBI come through and walk the building for bugs and for everything. We knew kind of what was in Baton Rouge, and we knew how they operated."