OK, I guess I need to start from the top. Lane Monte Kiffin (born May 9, 1975) is an American football coach and the head football coach at LSU. He previously served as the head coach for the Oakland Raiders from 2007 to 2009, University of Tennessee in 2009, USC from 2010 to 2013, Florida Atlantic from 2017 to 2019, and Ole Miss from 2020 to 2025.

Kiffin was Ole Miss’ coach last year, but left for LSU before the start of the College Football Playoff. (I hated it!) Ole Miss went on to win multiple CFP games, reaching the semifinals without Kiffin, who has never won a playoff game as a coach.

Kiffin’s return to Ole Miss was the game people had circled on their calendars. This is already a strong rivalry, and has been since well before Kiffin was born — but for this, Oxford brought in backup horse cops.

When coaches change schools in the transfer era of college football, they’re often able to bring most of the best players from their last job with them. In this regard, Kiffin largely failed. After Ole Miss’ playoff run (and the acrimonious way Kiffin left), players were more likely to stick with the school where they went on such an incredible run than follow the coach who ditched them. They returned 10 starters, the most of any school that lost its head coach to another school last year. Ole Miss kept Chambliss, star running back Kewan Lacy, and top receiver Deuce Alexander. While LSU did land some big names from Ole Miss (most notably star edge rusher Princewill Umanmielen and receiver Winston Watkins III), Kiffin got only four of his former players to come to Baton Rouge.

Long story short: It shouldn’t be that surprising that Ole Miss jumped out with a 17-0 lead on LSU and outgained the Tigers by 96 yards.

Chambliss gave Ole Miss a clear advantage at QB Saturday night. While LSU QB Sam Leavitt is perhaps more willing to scramble into a hit that flips his body head over heels, he’s a significantly worse passer. Chambliss threw for 363 yards on 7.6 yards per attempt; Leavitt threw for 158 on 5.9.

Kiffin is roughly the one-millionth coach to switch from one school to another. Chambliss is the first former Division II quarterback to lead his team to the College Football Playoff, become the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy, and a potential first-round draft pick. I’m gonna spend more time talking about his former coach from here on out.

That said: I have reserved some space for today’s Sports! editor, Ole Miss alum Alex McDaniel, to fill in her thoughts on Ole Miss’ win:

Thanks, Rodger! My thoughts are as follows:

NC State could have asked quarterback C.J. Bailey to run backward and throw the ball really high in the air until the clock expired. Plus, I bet it would be really fun to throw the ball really high in the air until the clock expires.

They could have sent their punter out there and told him to kick it as hard as he wants out of bounds. That might feel even better. I’ve tried throwing things really hard, and I’ve tried kicking things really hard, and it’s definitely way more fun to kick things really hard.

They could have opened the college football rulebook to any page and committed the penalty on that page. The penalty could be 5 yards, or 10 yards, or 15 yards — who cares? Field position no longer mattered, so long as they ran out the clock.

Intentional grounding? Sure. A million holding penalties? That’s actually a legit end-game strategy: The Ravens did this regularly to kill clock under John Harbaugh. (They even did this during the literal Super Bowl!) Tripping? Yes. Clipping? YES. Illegal hands to the face? How could it be wrong if it feels so right?

However, the Wolf Pack did not commit a single penalty on this play. They must be the most ethical team in existence, unwilling to break football rules even when the situation calls for it.

They could have asked Bailey to kill time and take an intentional safety. In fact, this is clearly what they wanted to do — Bailey clearly contemplated kneeling the ball with about three seconds left, but then suffered an unfortunate bout of courage and decided to try to fully kill the clock. (If there was still time remaining, NC State would’ve had to do a kickoff after a safety, but the odds of any individual kickoff being returned for a TD are very low.)

Instead of having Bailey kneel for a safety, NC State could have killed extra time by doing an Orlovsky. (I’m referring to the time Dan Orlovsky ran out of the back of the end zone, not the various unsettling ways Dan Orlovsky eats food. But Bailey could’ve eaten some unseasoned chicken back there, and it would’ve been fine.)

Long story short: NC State was in a position where most football punishments couldn’t hurt them. A safety gives the other team two points, but it didn’t matter; they were up three points. Penalties move the offense back, but it didn’t matter; they were literally trying to run backward. The odds were so firmly in their favor that they could fail and still succeed.

And yet.

ESPN reported that before this game, FBS teams were 1,046-1 over the previous 20 seasons when leading with the ball in the final 10 seconds of regulation, with the other loss coming on Michigan’s “trouble with the snap!” fumbled punt against Michigan State …

… I’m not sure their stats are right, though. I can think of at least one other game when a team had the ball with less than 10 seconds and lost.

Believe it or not, NC State is the second team to lose this year after a galaxy-brained last-minute intentional safety went awry. In the final moments of a Division III football game that went poorly enough to land in my social media feed, the University of New England — the Nor’easters! — had a four-point lead with 15 seconds left against Worcester Polytechnic Institute. They gave two points back on an intentional safety, then attempted a squib kick that hit the first guy in WPI’s kickoff return formation, failing to take time off the clock and setting WPI up for a 50-yard kick. And sure enough, D3 teams have guys who can kick 50-yard field goals these days:

By the way: NC State was up 17-0 in this game. This would’ve been their first road win against an SEC team since beating Auburn in 1977. And they could’ve had it if they’d simply done anything but what they did.

Oof.

I don’t get why this game was played in Wembley Stadium, the largest stadium in England. The logistics made sense because the NFL has played games there — they already have an appropriately sized field, and uprights, and locker rooms — but it was cavernous; the entire upper deck was empty.

I don’t get why the game was played in Week 3, right in the middle of a full college football slate. An NCAA exemption allows teams to play internationally during Week 0, making travel easier on players and drawing a larger television audience since there are only a handful of games in Week 0. (It also meant that FOX’s decision to host a pregame show live from England was buried by ESPN’s College GameDay from Ole Miss.)

I don’t get why they kicked off at noon Eastern — when dozens of other college football games were also kicking off. They could’ve been the only game kicking off at 9 or 10 a.m., like NFL teams do when they play overseas.

I don’t get why they played right in the middle of a Premier League Saturday. English fans already have something to watch at that exact moment! They should have tried holding the game during one of the FIFA international windows when club teams take a break for national teams to play. The NFL has the October window booked, but there’s another one in November.

I don’t get why they played in a place that already regularly hosts NFL games. When I went to a game in Dublin in 2022, I met many Irish and European fans who were eager to see an American football game, since Ireland hadn’t hosted one in six years. England has hosted at least three NFL games a year since 2013 (pandemic excluded). As the Guardian reporter noted, it’s hard to imagine these fans falling in love with Arizona State or Kansas when they already get to see pro teams.

I do, believe it or not, sorta get why this game in particular was played in London: Kansas’ stadium is under construction, so they were happy to give up a home date. But it doesn’t seem like the win sparked Jayhawks fever in London.