Ole Miss RB Reveals Coach’s Four-Word Mantra Before Lane Kiffin Revenge Game. Will It Work?

“It’s not about me,” Lane Kiffin said Saturday afternoon on ESPN’s College GameDay during a virtual interview hours before LSU’s SEC showdown against Ole Miss.

For Rebels players left to deal with the fallout of Kiffin’s messy exit from Oxford, Miss., last year, it really, truly, is not about him.

Ole Miss running back Kewan Lacy told ESPN’s Marty Smith that the Rebels are paying no mind to the noisy hullabaloo surrounding their ex-coach’s return, and that their coach Pete Golding had a very simple message for the team:

“We don’t need to block it out,” Lacy said. “Since PG became our head coach he’s preached, ‘It’s all about us.’ We have the talent to achieve everything we want to achieve. We have the right mindset to focus on us, and on the fine details. The details are what’s going to lead us to victory, not any exterior noise.”

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Lacy went on to give a sterling review of his teammate and star quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who helped lead Ole Miss to a 13–2 record and a national semifinal berth last season:

“He’s come out of his shell since last year. He’s more vocal on and off the field. He’s the best quarterback in the country—yessir, you know it’s true. He’s a gamer. Whatever the situation is, he’s gonna know exactly what to do, and always make a play. If the game is on the line, No. 6 is always the best option,” said Lacy.

All things considered, why would Lacy and other Rebels players pay any attention to the coach who abandoned them on the brink of a College Football Playoff berth? The coach who, since officially joining LSU in November 2025, has done nothing but attract a bigger portion of the spotlight with his controversial push to try to add ex-NFL players to the Tigers’ roster? The coach who upon tuning in to his virtual College GameDay interview was immediately battered with profane chants and venomous boos from a rightfully wrathful fan base?

Lane Kiffin joins 'College GameDay' for a virtual interview, and the chants and boos get loud in Oxford. https://t.co/cMQa2ppDMk pic.twitter.com/1lAMTqZrcA
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 19, 2026

The Lane Kiffin circus has served as nothing but an unwelcome distraction for Pete Golding, Ole Miss

Coming off an impressive CFP run in which the Rebels lost to Miami in the national semifinals, Golding’s squad received plenty of deserved praise for how it handled the drama Kiffin created. For Golding’s first full season at the helm, he was able to retain Lacy and Chambliss, the latter of whom was granted a state court injunction for another year of eligibility.

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Now nearly a year removed from Kiffin’s tenuous departure, the No. 8 Rebels will see if they have what it takes to take down their former coach and the No. 7 Tigers in an SEC opener that surely won’t disappoint. Security measures at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium have been heightened. Each team’s starting quarterbacks are, indeed, healthy. Lacy will take the field opposite some of his former teammates who defected to LSU (TJ Dottery, Devin Harper, Princewill Umanmielen and Winston Watkins), but the 20-year-old running back apparently never shared the same desire to follow Kiffin to Baton Rouge.

“They have something, you know, the transfer portal. But I didn’t enter the transfer portal. I stayed at Ole Miss,” Lacy said earlier this week in response to a question about whether he had the opportunity join LSU.

“Really don’t have a relationship with him,” Lacy added. “Just focused on the season.”

After rushing a career-high 1,567 yards and 24 touchdowns last year, Lacy has picked up right where he left off with 30 rushes for 148 yards and three touchdowns across the Rebels’ two wins in 2026 so far. In both those games, Ole Miss put up 41 points apiece. Come kickoff, it may be Lacy’s partner-in-crime, Chambliss, who could face his toughest test of the season against a revamped Tigers’ defensive front.

When the Rebels players run out of the tunnel onto the field at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, as the Ole Miss faithful loudly rally behind Golding while cursing Kiffin to oblivion, no one will be able to hide from the bright lights. The broadcast cameras may linger on one particular scorned coach, but the past in the past for Ole Miss, now. “It’s all about us.”

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