Lane Kiffin Reveals Receiving Nick Saban’s Advice on LSU Move With Honest Admission on Ole Miss Exit

August 11, 2026 · Yahoo Sports

Lane Kiffin and Nick Saban © Imagn

Lane Kiffin’s time at Ole Miss was often marred by the troubles he faced while he was leaving the program. But when it came to choosing his destination, there can be few to argue that LSU was the right place for him. As Kiffin puts it himself, the LSU move was simply too hard to resist.

Speaking on the SEC Network, Kiffin made it clear that it was the right decision to leave Ole Miss for LSU, and highlighted conversations with Nick Saban and Pete Carroll that only reiterated that fact.

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“To speed up their (Nick Saban and Pete Carroll) lengthy conversations on it, it was to take the (LSU) job. One of them had the perspective of being the LSU head coach, the other one had the perspective of what would your dad say to do,” Kiffin said.
“It was the right decision to take the job, there’s never a minute, second in the day that I’m in LSU and I don’t feel the power of LSU…We’ve talked about the handling of it, could have definitely been better but those calls (with Saban and Carroll) were “go for it”.”

More Details About Pete Carroll’s Advice to Lane Kiffin

While this was a snapshot of what Pete Carroll advised Lane Kiffin about moving to LSU, the former Ole Miss coach did talk a bit in detail earlier about Carroll’s advice to him while deciding about the move.

“Coach Carroll said, ‘Your dad would tell you to go, man, take the shot,’” Kiffin told Marty Smith of ESPN in late 2025. “‘Take the shot. You accomplished a lot here.’”

Lane’s relationship with Pete Carroll is special because of Carroll’s work with Lane’s father Monte Kiffin, who worked with Pete Carroll on several coaching staffs at the college and NFL levels, working primarily as a defensive coach.