Lane Kiffin Walks Back Into Oxford as the Enemy

Lane Kiffin coaches his first true road game against Ole Miss on Saturday night, in the same stadium where he spent six seasons coaching the home team.

No. 7 LSU visits No. 8 Ole Miss at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, kickoff at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC. Both teams are 2-0. It is the first time since 1962 that LSU and Ole Miss have met as top-10 teams, and the 115th game in a series that dates to 1894.

Kiffin built Ole Miss into a national contender over six years, three straight seasons of 10 or more wins and a program-record 11 regular-season victories last fall. He left for LSU in November, taking the job while Ole Miss was still alive in the College Football Playoff race. Florida wanted him too. He picked LSU instead. The Rebels finished No. 3 in the final poll without him.

Fans jeered him on his way out of town. Ole Miss boosters raised more than $20 million in emergency funds to keep the roster together after he left. Mississippi is assembling its largest law enforcement presence ever for a college football game Saturday, 65 to 70 state troopers backed by a helicopter and a mobile command center outside the stadium.

Several of Kiffin's former Ole Miss players are now on LSU's roster. Ole Miss has since sued two of the transfers for breach of their revenue-sharing agreements, one of them for $550,000.

None of that decides the game. LSU is ranked seventh after outscoring Clemson and Louisiana Tech by a combined 96-24. Saturday is its first real test, after a three-week legal fight over two former NFL players' eligibility followed the program into September.

LSU's quarterback situation is not settled. Sam Leavitt, an Arizona State transfer with 574 passing yards and seven total touchdowns through two games, two through the air and five on the ground, was upgraded from doubtful to questionable this week with an upper-body injury.

He threw three interceptions in the first half against Louisiana Tech, then settled down to finish with 366 total yards and four touchdowns. If he can't go, it's Landen Clark, an Elon transfer, making his first FBS start in the loudest building LSU will see all season.

Ole Miss has no such uncertainty. Not at quarterback. Trinidad Chambliss, the unquestioned starter who threw for nearly 4,000 yards and accounted for 30 touchdowns last season, beat LSU a year ago with 385 total yards, 314 through the air. Running back Kewan Lacy has scored a rushing touchdown in 11 straight games, the second-longest active streak in the country.

LSU's defense, coordinated by Blake Baker, has 12 sacks through two games. Princewill Umanmielen, who transferred from Ole Miss, leads the group with five sacks of his own. Ole Miss's front seven is the strength of Pete Golding's defense. The secondary is the unit LSU plans to attack. Golding, promoted the day Kiffin left, has already faced a ranked opponent in five of his first six games as a head coach.

Kiffin will walk out of a visitor's tunnel Saturday night, into a stadium he used to fill, now filled against him.