Rece Davis calls out Lane Kiffin for 'completely unnecessary' comments about Ole Miss segregation issues

LSU head coach Lane Kiffin took a blowtorch to the smoldering feud with Ole Miss and its still-aggrieved fan base this week. Kiffin suggested Oxford’s segregated past was an occasional impediment to recruiting Black players to the Rebels during a recent interview with Vanity Fair.

“(Recruits would say), ‘Hey, Coach, we really like you. But my grandparents aren’t letting me move to Oxford, Mississippi,’” Kiffin told Vanity Fair‘s Chris Smith. “That doesn’t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Parents were sitting here this weekend saying the campus’ diversity feels so great: ‘It feels like there’s no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that’s the real world.’”

Kiffin has since apologized for his controversial comments, but it hasn’t slowed the wave of criticism and condemnation that followed. That includes ESPN’s College GameDay host Rece Davis, who called Kiffin’s recruiting anecdote “completely unnecessary” during this week’s College GameDay Podcast. Davis even suggested it was nothing more than a self-serving recruiting dig meant to denigrate his former employer.

“The thing that struck me about this was that it was completely unnecessary from Lane Kiffin,” Davis said. “Because you had five years at Ole Miss to deal with some of these things, and to confront them, and to make a difference in a positive way. Instead, what you choose to do is bring it up in an interview, and it wouldn’t take much for a cynic to say you’re doing it for some type of recruiting advantage, or some type of final dig on the way out the door.

“Again, not questioning the validity that it actually happened, and that there might still be families of recruits in some corners who feel that way,” Davis continued. “Although I think it’s fair to point out that Ole Miss has made great strides, and has had a tremendous number of Black athletes who’ve had great success in Oxford, both personally, professionally, and within their collegiate careers. It just didn’t ring as being something other than some type of recruiting dig.”

Of course, Davis wasn’t the lone voice to call out Kiffin for his comments.

Paul Finebaum on Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss diversity comments: ‘This is Kiffin trying to wipe Ole Miss off the face of the earth’

ESPN firebrand Paul Finebaum blasted Kiffin even bringing up the topic, which the author of the Vanity Fair piece said was unprovoked during a recent appearance on The Paul Finebaum Show. Given that context, Finebaum suggested Kiffin is still “bitter” because the Ole Miss administration refused to let him coach the Rebels during last season’s College Football Playoff run after he already accepted the LSU job.

“First of all, the idea that an SEC coach at LSU is breaking big news in Vanity Fair has to be shaking up Fifth Avenue right now. But it’s Lane Kiffin. The most important thing to factor in here was that this was not a slip of the tongue,” Finebaum said on Thursday morning’s Get Up. “I talked to the writer who did the Vanity Fair piece the other day, Chris Smith. He said he didn’t even ask Kiffin about the racism aspect of it. Kiffin just started riffing. 

“This is Kiffin trying to wipe Ole Miss off the face of the earth. He is still very bitter at them, even though they’re the jolted lover,” Finebaum continued. “He’s bitter at them because they wouldn’t let him coach in the Playoff. He has to recruit against them, and he also has to play against them on Sept. 19. That’s a game that will gain a bit of attention.”

— On3’s Daniel Hager contributed to this report.