Ole Miss Players Push Out Confident Message After News of Lane Kiffin Leaving for LSU

Several Rebels players are publicly confident in the team’s future after Lane Kiffin’s departure.

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin has left to take the LSU job. His now former players are pushing a confident message after his departure. | Dale Zanine-Imagn Images

Lane Kiffin is leaving Ole Miss to take over as the head coach at LSU. His now-former players seem confident moving forward.

Rebels center Brycen Sanders took to X (formerly Twitter) to praise the school’s athletic director, Keith Carter, and new permanent head coach Pete Golding.

LFG! @KeithCarterOM best AD in the nation, and couldn't be more excited to play for Coach Golding https://t.co/4fWYY0hZ4R

— Brycen Sanders (@BrycenSanders1) November 30, 2025

That tweet responded to a video of Sanders telling an assembled crowd, “We’re going to win the natty.”

Additionally, according to Karis Chambliss, who shared the video that Sanders responded to, one Ole Miss player said, “The only person getting on that plane with Kiffin is his brother,” meaning Kiffin might not be leaving with as much as his staff for LSU as he originally thought.

It remains to be seen what the full fallout is from Kiffin’s departure from an 11-1 team that is currently preparing for a near-certain spot in the College Football Playoff. There could be Rebels players and coaches who plan to head to LSU with Kiffin, but we don’t know the extent of that yet.

Kiffin claims he wanted to coach the team through the playoff, but, according to the head coach, that idea was rejected by Carter.

For now, the team has a new head coach to guide it moving forward.

Golding is 41 and has been Ole Miss’s defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach since 2023. Before that, he served in the same roles for Alabama from 2018 through the ‘22 season.

Players seem ready to put it all on the line for Golding as they make their postseason run.

One of the Ole Miss players, I’m not sure who, working to find out, just exited the meeting and yelled, “It’s the Pete Golding era!”

— Marty Smith (@MartySmithESPN) November 30, 2025

Golding has a tough act to follow in Kiffin, who was 55-19 in his six seasons in Oxford, but his players seem to be supremely confident in their new coach.

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