Forde-Yard Dash: Most Bitter Breakups Between Coaches and Their Former Schools

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football, where Oregon needs some self-scouting to stop giving away its plays. First Quarter: ‘O’ No. Second Quarter: We Have a New Leader in the Conference Power Ratings.

Third Quarter: Bitter Divorces, Bad Feelings

This is Lane Kiffin Psychodrama Week (21) in college football. You may be saying to yourself, correctly, “Isn’t that every week?” But this will take things to an entirely new level, to the point where The Dash will approach Mississippi’s Vaught-Hemingway Stadium for the LSU–Ole Miss game with a sense of foreboding. Violence is not the answer, friends.

The issue here is not just that Kiffin has made this the Divorce of the Century in football; it’s the backstory between the two programs. Leaving Ole Miss for LSU cuts deeply, especially for Rebels fans with long memories and/or an appreciation of history. There is a reason Ole Miss fans finish the national anthem by chanting, “Go to hell, LSU,” every game, not just when playing the Tigers.

The two began their football rivalry in 1894, seven years before Ole Miss first played Mississippi State. They’ve played 114 times, with LSU holding a 66-44-4 series lead. There were stretches where the Rebels and Tigers were the best programs in the SEC, and sometimes arguably in the entire nation.

From 1958 to ’62, Ole Miss went 48-5-1, but three of the losses and the tie were both against LSU. One of those losses left a wound for decades: 7–3 on Halloween night in Baton Rouge in 1959, when Mississippi native Billy Cannon (22) returned a late punt 89 yards for the winning points, the only touchdown of the game.

Cannon went on to win the Heisman Trophy, something an Ole Miss player has never done. And LSU’s program went on to become a perennial power, while the Rebels gradually receded from primacy. When the SEC had two divisions from 1992 to 2023, Ole Miss was the only member of the SEC West not to make the league championship game.

So Kiffin jumping to the other side of the Mississippi River, and the other side of that rivalry, was a burned bridge. And it is guaranteed to flare up every season he’s at LSU, since the two programs are designated annual opponents for future SEC schedules. In terms of bad blood, the first meeting will be the worst meeting.

While this is an all-timer, it’s hardly the only time a fan base has been at war with its former coach.

Current examples:

James Franklin (23)

Angry fan base: Penn State. To be clear, the Nittany Lions faithful wanted Franklin gone after years of failing to win the big one. But they very much want to see their own program perform at a higher level than Franklin’s bounce-back home, Virginia Tech. For now, both Franklin and Penn State are 2–0 and eyeing each other warily, waiting for the chance to say “told ya so” after the first loss either suffers.

Jedd Fisch (24)

Angry fan base: Arizona. As the Nick Saban retirement dominoes started to fall in January 2024, Fisch fled Tucson for Washington after three seasons. That came after the usual vows of loyalty to the Wildcats, and happened abruptly—then Washington AD Troy Dannen was in Fisch’s house signing him to a contract two days after Kalen DeBoer left the Huskies for Alabama. Fisch had a three-minute team meeting to announce his departure, then took some key players, recruits and staff members with him, including current Washington star quarterback Demond Williams Jr.

Pat Fitzgerald (25)

Angry fan base: Northwestern. Most Wildcats backers don’t hold Fitzgerald’s firing against him in the wake of a hazing scandal—he settled a wrongful termination suit against the school, and is arguably the school’s all-time greatest player. But the new Michigan State coach has taken a shot or two at his old school. At Big Ten media days in July he passive-aggressively noted the famously small and passive Northwestern home crowds: “I’m just excited to have a home field advantage. Never lived that. It’s going to be cool. Really excited about it, not going to lie.” Northwestern plays at Michigan State on Oct. 17.

Lincoln Riley (26)

Angry fan base: Oklahoma. The Sooners are not accustomed to being jilted, and they were furious when Riley stunningly left for USC. Some declared they were glad to see him go, given his team’s pliable defenses, but this is another case where the next guy hasn’t won at near the same level. (See: The Dash First Quarter.) A fair share of Oklahoma fans are still scoreboard watching Riley’s Trojans on a regular basis, rooting for his demise.

Recent past:

Bobby Petrino (27)

Angry fan bases: Louisville, Arkansas. When Petrino left Louisville the first time, it was for the NFL—but before that he tried to jump to Auburn and LSU without getting the jobs. Cardinals fans were furious with him every year for a while. Petrino 2.0 smoothed things over by turning Lamar Jackson into a Heisman winner, but then quit coaching and saw his program collapse. He was fired 10 games into the 2018 season. As for Arkansas: The motorcycle ride that lives in infamy derailed a successful tenure. Given what’s become of the program since then, some Razorbacks fans would have welcomed him back at varying points.

Brian Kelly (28)

Angry fan base: Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish ended up conclusively winning the divorce, with Marcus Freeman taking them to the 2024 College Football Playoff championship game and Fake Southern Accent Guy getting fired last year at LSU. But for a couple of years there was sincere loathing in South Bend for the coach who dared walk out for what he believed was a better shot at a national title.

Nick Saban (29)

Angry fan base: LSU. He followed the Rick Pitino career path: win a college national title, hang around for one more season, try the pros, fail at the pros, then come back to college at a hated rival of the school where he used to be. The difference: Pitino won one more national title (kind of) at the rival school, whereas Saban won six. He’ll forever be known as an Alabama legend, which royally perturbs LSU fans.

Nick Saban returns to LSU — Nick Saban left LSU for Alabama and won six national titles. His first game back at Tiger Stadium in 2008 was a Crimson Tide win. | Bob Rosato/Sports Illustrated

Dan Mullen (30)

Angry fan base: Mississippi State. The second-winningest coach in Bulldogs history made an understandable move to Florida in 2018. But it came just nine months after agreeing to a four-year extension, and it required Mullen to play his former team in Starkville, Miss., just five games into his Gators tenure. Before the game, buttons showing a photoshop of MSU quarterback Nick Fitzgerald flipping off Mullen were making the rounds. Mullen won the battle that day but lost the war, getting fired at Florida three years later.

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