Even at LSU, Lane Kiffin is still making everything about himself

Some new signage went up in the LSU football facility over the weekend. The screed, written in white text across a purple background, is best understood in its original form: as the Facebook screed of a divorced dad sub-tweeting his wife after getting trounced in a child support hearing.

Lots of thoughts here, clearly.

First, what's the light side of being the villain?

More importantly, who, exactly is the villain at LSU?

Is it the players who signed with LSU under Brian Kelly and remained with the program after the coaching change? I mean, every major college football program has its share of rivals and haters, but I don't think they're who we're talking about here. Guys like junior linebacker Davhon Keys, a 2024 and '25 SEC Academic Honor Roll member, are no one's idea of a villain.

Are the players who LSU acquired in the portal villains? The handful of guys who left Ole Miss for LSU didn't receive warm welcomes upon their return to Oxford, to be sure. QB Sam Leavitt has some "antagonist in a high school dramedy" energy to him, but that's half a compliment right there. 

But who am I kidding? We all know who's the villain at LSU -- or, who turned LSU into the villain. It's Lane Kiffin. Tigers players signed up to be the villains of college football because of who they chose (or didn't choose, depending on when they arrived) to play for.

The construction and inspiration for the new signage at the LSU football facility is Lane Kiffin talking about Lane Kiffin. Because it always has to be about Lane Kiffin.

Look at what LSU's official Twitter account tweeted out Saturday. This is straight out of the Morgan Wallen playbook -- which, following with the Divorced Dad energy, tracks.

These are just three of the five tweets @LSUfootball sent out about who was walking in the vicinity of Lane. And while we're at it, do we think that Lane chose that outfit for himself or was it curated for him? I'm betting the latter. 

"Who walked in wasn't the reason we didn't execute in the red zone. That's much more from a visual, recruiting standpoint -- not just 12th graders, 8th and 9th graders, they say, 'That place is cool. I want to go there.' There's a lot that goes into that and it does not have anything to do with winning or losing the game," Kiffin said Monday. "We've played great at home for years and done the same thing." 

Lane idolizes Nick Saban -- hey, join the club -- and Saban would have bent the staff member in half who suggested he make a spectacle of who he's walking off the bus and into the stadium with. 

That's not to say Lane has to contort himself into a carbon copy of Saban. That's a road to nowhere. He has to be himself. It's just... Lane never gets enough of himself.

Nick Saban became a celebrity through winning football games. Lane Kiffin is trying to win football games through his celebrity.

Apparently, LSU's head coach doesn't think that LSU alone is enough to attract the attention of 8th and 9th graders. The LSU brand, Death Valley at night, Mike the Tiger, the purple and gold, three national championships this century, the legacy of Joe Burrow and Tyrann Mathieu and Marcus Spears and Justin Jefferson -- none of that is enough. Scoring points, winning games, and being paid lots of money to do so isn't enough either. LSU also requires snazzy videos of Lane Kiffin in a $1,000 suede jacket with Angel Reese. 

Lane Kiffin was the Main Character of college football last November, December and January. And in snagging him away from Ole Miss, LSU's own brand is now secondary to its head coach's personal brand.