Bill Cowher Goes OFF on Lane Kiffin to LSU | NFL Today

And welcome to the NFL today on YouTube folks. There is some news in the world of college football. It is now official. After weeks of speculation, Lane Kiffin has made the decision to leave Ole Miss to become the next head coach of the LSU Tigers.

Now Kiffin leaves Oxford with the 55 and 19 record in his six years at the helm. The Rebels are currently 11 and one. They're on the precipice of their very first college football playoff appearance in program history. By the way, Kiffin will not be coaching the Rebels in the upcoming college football playoffs, and Ole Miss has elevated defensive coordinator Pete Golding to be the permanent coach of the program.

Bill Cowher, an awful lot of discussion about the decision-making process there.

Your thoughts? Well, Well before get to the process Let's just talk about Lane Kiffin's decision and what he asked in his statement that he was denied the opportunity to coach the Ole Miss team through the course of the playoffs and He was denied by the ad and I would say why would you even ask that question? Why would an ad let a coach? Who made a decision

that he wanted to go to LSU and not stay at Ole Miss coach my players and use my coaches and tell them for the next month why they should be joining him at LSU? Totally understand, I would just say thank you Lane and goodbye.

And that being said, if indeed he decides to take other coaches with him, I would just say any player that goes to play for Lane Kiffin, just understand one thing, it's not about the program, it's about Lane Kiffin. Because he don't care about the players that he just went through a season with, a special season,

players he's had for four years, with an opportunity to go to the playoffs, he's decided to take them and not only leave them, which I get, okay, you want to be there and you want to do it with. But if I can't do it, I'm not going to let you do it yourself. The NCAA has got a problem. There's no guardrails. This landscape that's in the it's involved

right now, not just with players. I'm talking even of the coaches, but even with players, you're talking about the portal the NL. We have now got this thing in this landscape is totally out of It's a wild wild West out there and something needs to be done. And hopefully a situation like this where those players at Ole

Miss they're the losers in this thing because this guy just left them abandon them and disrupted

everything everything. Let me just add to that too

And I just need to tell you one last thing. I understand that he went, and I don't have any problem with that. But you know what? If you go, then go. And wish them nothing but the best. Don't disrupt that program. Don't take any of those coaches.

Let them stay there and let them finish the job that you left. Because you didn't want to finish it because you decided you want to go that program, that organization. Because you know what? That administration, that school, they gave you the money for the NIL. Those assistant coaches helped you.

And it worked.

You're playing well. It wasn't just about you. A football program is not just about the head coach. It's about the assistants. It's about the organization. It's about everybody else, the administrative staff that sat there and gave you money for NIL, it's about them too. You've left them.

And so it isn't just about you, Lane Kiffin.

But let me just make this point as well too. It also rings hollow when coaches are making promises to kids and their parents about what they're gonna represent. But we find out what it really means when we see a decision-making process

that entailed all of this. It ain't pretty.

Yes, I have relationships with coaches all over the country. And I hear them saying the same thing. I'm talking about college coaches. As soon as a player leaves, they're pointing the finger at the young guy and saying, oh, you know, this new era of college football.

It's upside down.

This is ridiculous. They're going in there chasing their own careers. They say it's upside down. Are you kidding me?

Yeah, and they're chasing their money.

They're chasing their careers. They're chasing their own individual wants and needs.

But then you have coaches doing the exact same thing.

Been doing the same thing.

Been doing the same thing. And these are the same coaches, like you said, that call you up, that no, no, no, we got your son's back. We have his best interest at heart. And I'm going to be here for the long run. But that's false, though. I have two sons in college.

They have already had multiple coaches, not just position coaches, but head coaches. And it just seems like right now, yes, it is the Wild, Wild West. And I don't know where we're going to go from here.

We cover the NFL. And the NFL is the most popular sport in our country because it's clearly defined what the time frame is, what the rules are, when you can hire, when you cannot hire. And it's what makes it so competitive. The fact that we view, or some people still view, college sports as amateur athletics to me is laughable. It is not.

Given the money, given the amount of movement that there is from school to school, coaching staff to coaching staff, all of those things, I think it's absolutely laughable. Until there's clear structures in place, like the NFL has, a regular free agency period that's

not during a season, which is the portal. The portal right now goes from January 2nd to January 16th, I believe, in 2026. You also have weird rules to it, the coaching change window, that there's five days after or

whatever. Then there's a postseason exception.

Like, how do you make sense of any of this? How do you plan as a program for what your future is going to look like. If you take Lane Kiffin out of out of this scenario to me this is an institutional problem.

This is an NCAA problem.

This is a college football

This is all of college athletics right now. It's out of control.

Like you said it's the wild And until there is some kind of structure that everybody plays by that makes sense for the timing with which they play, so that if there is a decision, that if I am a head coach, and it is my time to move on to a different program, whether that be an Ole Miss to an LSU,

or a Tulane to a Florida, there's the appropriate protocols that are in place that you can do it the right way. Until that happens, this is gonna be a complete joke.

Things like this are gonna continue to happen.

You know, I sat there and coached in the National Football League for 15 years. And part of my responsibility to me was not just winning football games. It was developing young men, understanding responsibilities, understanding that when you have sacrifice and you give up something for a greater need of a team,

that that's one of the greatest accomplishments you can have in life. And so when you take a selflessness and you can apply that, because you have in life. And so when you take a selflessness and you can apply that because you understand in life it's not going to always be easy.

And sometimes you're not going to have to go to the port. You know what? You're going to have to work to become a starter. Those are true values you can take to any quality of life, to the next level. And so right now it's so easy. entitlement that if I don't get told I'm going to start, I'm going to go somewhere else. Give me more money, I'm going to go there.

You keep chasing things, you'll never grow as an individual. And that to me are the lessons that I try to teach the players. And I try to adhere to that myself, as a parent and as a coach, because that was my obligation. I wanted them to leave a better person than when I met them. I just leave you with some core values

to be a good family man, to be a father, you know, to sit there and be a good friend, to be there when someone really needs you. Yeah. And, you know, it's easy to say, I'm gonna go somewhere else

because I'm getting paid more money. But, you know what, I'd rather stay with you special, we're losing that right now because that special is getting lost in NIL. That special is getting lost in sitting there in portals because they're being asked to fight for a job. It's getting lost with coaches who are going to sit there and go where the grass is greener and they think it's greener. And you know what? If I don't get my way, I'm going to

take you down with me. That's wrong. Those are all the wrong you're trying to teach it. I'm going to tell you what, NCAA, step in. Put guardrails on this thing. Just like you said, I don't know what the exact answer is. I'm not sure how we'd go about doing it. But you got guys, and you get a guy like Nick Saban, that to me, represents what everything is about. Did he coach you hard?

Yeah.

But when you left there, that's a sign. That's a sign that something's wrong with the system.

Yeah, you know what, and I'll just cap it off with this. You make a good point, and I validate that because I've heard from college players say, how can a school ask me to be loyal to the program if the coaching staff isn't?

Yeah. Yeah.

And I simply answer it by saying, they can't.