Here’s the honest truth about college football, one that Ole Miss fans keep trying to forget even though the universe repeatedly slaps us with reminders: coaches are temporary residents. They show up, hang a visor on the back of a chair, charm everyone with a smile and a few big wins, and suddenly we’re all pretending they’re settling in for the long haul. They’re not. They never were.
So Lane leaving? That part was never surprising.
What was surprising was how dramatically he managed to do it. It wasn’t a clean exit. It wasn’t a quiet exit. It was the kind of exit where everyone is forced to hover over Twitter like they’re monitoring an incoming tropical storm.
And the only way I can truly explain how this felt is by comparing it to something that happened in my own house this Thanksgiving.
Lane Kiffin is the green bean casserole we found sitting in the oven the next morning—not because we forgot him, but because he became something we could no longer serve.
The casserole was innocent and, at first, delicious. But once everyone had eaten their fill, we stuck the leftovers in the oven while we tended to the rest of the Thanksgiving chaos. Winnie was acting feral, there was no counter space left, twenty things were happening at once—the oven was off, it was safe, it was supposed to be temporary.
Then we opened it the next morning and saw what it had turned into: cold, unrecognizable, weirdly sad, and definitely not something that belonged on the table anymore.
That part?
That’s the metaphor.
Not the forgetting.
Not the hiding spot.
Not the logistics.
Just the truth of it: Sometimes something that was perfectly fine yesterday becomes absolutely unusable today—and not because of anything you did.
Lane didn’t transform. He didn’t suddenly become someone new. We just finally saw what was always there—the part he was never going to hide for long.
Lane is exactly the same—just a more chaotic, self-involved version of the casserole. Lane wasn’t ruined by us; Lane was Lane from day one: a walking, talking ego in a visor, a man who can call brilliant plays but couldn’t commit to a single ZIP code if you stapled him to the welcome sign. He arrived with one hand on the playbook and the other already scrolling Zillow, because loyalty doesn’t live in Lane’s world—attention does.
And the audacity—the full, uncut nerve—of thinking Ole Miss would let him coach us through the playoffs after he’d already whispered sweet nothings to LSU?
Peak Lane.
Peak narcissist.
The kind of delusion only a man who adores his own reflection could muster.
And now he’s poaching our coaching staff too, clearing out the silverware drawer like he’s entitled to whatever isn’t nailed down.
Lane didn’t change.
But here’s what he will never understand: no matter how loudly he centers himself, no matter how many bridges he lights on fire behind him, he is not the main attraction.
He’s not the entrée.
He’s not the tradition.
He’s not even the dish anyone shows up for.
In the end, he’s still just green bean casserole—a gloopy, lukewarm side item most people don’t even like. (I can confirm that because I’ve surveyed them.)
And THAT is why his exit didn’t feel like discovering a forgotten dish.
It felt like discovering the raccoon who kicked the casserole aside also helped himself to whatever else he could grab on his way out.
Chaotic. Messy. Predictable.
And exactly what we should have expected from him.
Even the air-traffic-controller “Hotty Toddy” as he flew away had the same energy as the universe gently tapping us on the shoulder to say, “Sweetheart… it’s time. Take the pan out. You know it’s over.”
Let LSU scrape the edges, add seasoning, and convince themselves this is a fresh start. They can dress it up however they want. They can embroider “heaux” on a hand towel and pretend it’s a personality trait.
But here at Ole Miss?
We’re cleaning out the oven.
We’re throwing away what expired.
And we’re making space for something new—something warm and reliable and not dependent on whatever emotional temperature Lane happened to be that day.
Sometimes the bravest thing a fanbase can do is accept that something has outlived its usefulness and let the trash bag do its job.
Absurdities and Fires 