LSU Loss Puts Lane Kiffin’s Record Against Top 25 Teams Under Scrutiny

LSU Tigers head coach Lane Kiffin fell to 13-26 against Top 25 opponents after the No. 7 Tigers lost 32-24 at No. 8 Ole Miss on Saturday in his first game back at his former school.

College football insider Brennon Chapman posted the updated mark on X after the game. Chapman noted that the loss drops Kiffin below Illinois coach Bret Bielema, who is 23-45 against ranked teams, and ties him with former Arkansas and Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt, who went 20-40.

Lane Kiffin's record by school

LSU Loss Puts Lane Kiffin’s Record Against Top 25 Teams Under Scrutiny — USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Kiffin's trouble against ranked teams started early in his head coaching career. He went 1-3 against ranked opponents in his one season at Tennessee in 2009 and 2-7 at USC. Then he went 0-5 against ranked teams at Florida Atlantic.

That added up to a 3-15 mark before he got to Oxford. The 51-year-old went 10-10 against ranked teams in six seasons at Ole Miss, and Saturday's loss was his first game against a ranked opponent as LSU's coach.

How did Ole Miss beat LSU?

Ole Miss led 24-7 at halftime. But LSU scored 14 straight points in the third quarter and tied the game at 24 on a field goal with 11:23 left.

Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss answered with a 13-play, 75-yard drive. He finished it with a 14-yard touchdown run with less than seven minutes left, and a two-point conversion put the Rebels up 32-24.

LSU still had a chance to tie. However, Jaylon Braxton intercepted Sam Leavitt's fourth-down pass in the end zone in the final seconds.

Chambliss, the Division II transfer Kiffin brought to Oxford last year, threw for 363 yards and had three total touchdowns.

"Credit to them. Players made plays," Kiffin said after the game. "That's what my biggest fear was all week, every minute, when the game is at the end and Trinidad has the ball in his hand."

Kiffin's record as a top-10 team

The loss dropped Kiffin to 1-7 as a top-10 team facing a ranked opponent. His lone win in that spot came when No. 8 Ole Miss beat No. 13 Oklahoma 34-26 last season.

He's also 1-9 in true road games against Associated Press top-10 teams in a coach database that dates back to 1990. That count leaves out bowl and neutral-site games.

But beating ranked teams is hard for nearly every coach in the sport, and Kiffin's critics tend to skip that part. Only 10 Power Four coaches entered the 2026 season with a .500 or better career record against Top 25 teams. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian was 25-35 in those games, and Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz was 31-60.

So Kiffin's 10-10 mark at Ole Miss matches a standard most Power Four coaches haven't reached over their full careers. And he did it at a school that had only two 10-win seasons from 1972 until he arrived in 2020. The former Rebels coach went 55-19 in Oxford with four 10-win seasons, and his 50 wins from 2021 on trailed only Georgia and Alabama in the SEC. He left Ole Miss at 11-1 in the regular season and headed for the program's first College Football Playoff.

Texas A&M visits LSU (2-1, 0-1 SEC) on Saturday, Sept. 26, at 7:30 p.m. ET. Alabama comes to Baton Rouge on Nov. 7 and Texas follows on Nov. 14, and then LSU travels to Tennessee on Nov. 21.

Add us as a preferred source on Google