Credit: Amber Searls-Imagn Images
By Chris Marler
Ole Miss and LSU’s rivalry is at a boiling point, and it won’t calm down any time soon. Here’s two truths and a lie discussing the break up, hypocrisy, and absurdity of it all.
Truth No. 1 – LSU is now winning the break up
Nearly two weeks ago, I made the way too early comment that Ole Miss was winning the breakup. It was accurate at the time. OIe Miss was retaining several key players and leading the portal rankings with early commits. They were also still in the College Football Playoff. They were winning the breakup, and give credit where credit is due, they have done a tremendous job at winning out of the gates in the Pete Golding era.
Time marches on however, and the longer we are removed from the chaotic ending of Lane Kiffin’s tenure in Oxford, the more it seems evident that LSU is getting what they paid for and more from their new head coach.
With the addition of Sam Leavitt, #LSU officially has the #1 transfer portal class in the country pic.twitter.com/Y30e0Pr1r6
— Tingle & Co (@Tingle__Co) January 12, 2026
All Kiffin has done since he got to Baton Rouge is work. Well, and tweet and pilates, but mainly just work. He signed the No. 1 overall player in the class, and has landed the No. 1 ranked class in the country according to 247Sports. The class is comprised of 39 players, 21 more than last year. There could be more to come too with No. 1 offensive tackle Jordan Seaton visiting Baton Rouge on Sunday.
Truth No. 2 – Ole Miss isn’t going away, neither is their hypocrisy
Ole Miss really has done a great job navigating the post Lane Kiffin era. They became extremely likable and easy to cheer for in the playoff, and Pete Golding did a tremendous job keeping the ship afloat. He was able to retain a lot of high profile players that were rumored to be jumping ship to Baton Rouge to follow Lane Kiffin.
They played the hero and the victim extremely well making Lane Kiffin the scapegoat and poster child for tampering and greed. They ascended back into their self-built ivory towers and looked down their nose at LSU and other programs around the SEC about what’s right and wrong, especially in college football’s portal and NIL era.
All the while we came to find out that the calls about tampering were coming from inside the house. They were reportedly one of the handful of schools that offered Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson a lucrative NIL deal of nearly $4 million to enter the portal and not the NFL Draft. That may seem odd, and that’s because it is considering he never entered the portal. Then on Saturday they landed a commitment from former South Carolina tight end Michael Smith who was intending to return to South Carolina but signed a contract with Syracuse that he would not be let out of. Somehow Ole MIss found a way around that. Good for them.
Former South Carolina TE Michael Smith, who quit on the Gamecocks in the middle of the season and committed to Syracuse two weeks ago, is now heading to Ole Miss.
— Jordan Kaye (@jordankaye_23) January 18, 2026
The Lie – Time heals all wounds
I hate cliches almost as much as I hate ISIS and yellow starbursts. The cliche that time heals all wounds applies to a lot of things. It does not apply to the LSU-Ole Miss rivalry, and that will be on full display on September 19 when the two teams meet in Oxford. There is no love lost between these two programs and that won’t change any time soon.
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