Paul Finebaum ready to put Lane Kiffin at top of 'overrated' coaches list without CFP appearance

He won’t do it yet, but ESPN’s Paul Finebaum wants to put Lane Kiffin at the top of his overrated coaches list in college football. What will cause such a distinction? If Kiffin misses the College Football Playoff in his first year at LSU.

After spurning Ole Miss prior to the Rebels’ CFP run last season, all the pressure is on Kiffin to turn LSU back into a perennial national title threat immediately. He got the QB in Sam Leavitt from Arizona State, among other transfers and recruits, so it’s time to put his money where his mouth is.

Finebaum noted he still questions Kiffin at the peak of his powers, considering Ole Miss won two CFP games last year with Pete Golding at the helm, prior to the latter’s official appointment as permanent head coach.

“The most intriguing name on whether he’s overrated or not is Lane Kiffin,” Finebaum said on Crain and Cone. “And I think a year from today, if you have me back and Lane Kiffin has not made the playoffs, I would put him at the top of the list, because it’s so hard to give him total credit for what happened last year. He did not do the most important thing on the Ole Miss schedule. He didn’t win those playoff games. He didn’t beat Georgia. Now, he beat Georgia two years ago at home. But I am somewhat underwhelmed by Lane Kiffin’s overall record against against top 10 teams.”

Kiffin boasts a career record of 116-53 across all of his college football stops. At Ole Miss, he went 55-19 and had four double digit win seasons out of his six years.

Lane Kiffin overrated? Or should there be patience at LSU?

On3’s Ari Wasserman already scoffed at the notion of patience for Kiffin at LSU. Other than Brian Kelly, three of the four previous coaches this century won national titles with the Tigers: Nick Saban, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Kiffin said after the team’s first spring practice. “I said that the first day we got here. Now that we’re into practice format, things don’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of work to get a program up to an elite-performing program level. So we’re making some first steps, but there’s a ton of work to do.

“We have assembled a good roster, but at the same time, too, there’s a ton of work that goes into that to get the program back up to everybody around here wants it to be and the reason we came here. It was 7-6 last season. Within that comes change and a lot of work because that’s a long jump to go to the level that I came here to get at and all the program around here want to be at.”

Wasserman certainly didn’t want to hear about patience and Finebaum likely doesn’t either. We’ll see where the embattled head coach and LSU stand at this point of the calendar in 2027.