Lane Kiffin wants someone to blame for LSU mess. Try the mirror | Opinion

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We don’t know how it reached social media, but it did. Don’t know who penned the message, but I have a reasonable idea.

This much we do know: The word “you" and all its finger-pointing contractions were used 34 times in a message “to every player and employee” posted in the LSU football facility.

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Now I don’t want to go completely off the rails, but the guy who earlier this year admitted to embracing the villain role, who may or may not have narcissistic tendencies, may want to stop blaming the media and fans and start looking at his own failures. 

Lane, bud, this is all your doing. So let's hop on that “you” train of contractions.  

You brought the circus to town, because you’ve needed it everywhere else. Because it worked, and it drove interest and allowed you to build and win quicker. 

You’d deal with the unintended consequences later. 

So you cooked up drama at Tennessee and took on Urban Meyer and Steve Spurrier, and the next thing you know, you’re staring at 14 NCAA violations in 11 months before you leave town for your dream job at USC. 

The NCAA posse took 30 scholarships away, and you never really had a fair shot at USC. Tried everything to change the vibe with your circus, including a scholarship offer for a 13-year-old quarterback and, yes, cheating (deflated footballs). 

By the time it ended, your face was stuck in a play-call sheet while the house burned all around you, and you’re eventually fired on the tarmac at LAX after a blowout loss to Arizona State. How bad must it have gotten when Pat Haden, one of the true gentlemen of sports, couldn’t find more appropriate timing?

Then Nick Saban saved you, and a few years later, wile recruiting players and coaches to your new job at FAU during preparations for the national championship game, you get fired on the spot. How bad must it have gotten when Saban, who places winning above all else, made that move days before the biggest game of the season?

Then you take the Ole Miss job, and good god, how are you supposed to win there? But you brought the circus to Oxford, and did what you do best: coach quarterbacks and call ball plays. 

The program got better, NIL arrived and the Ole Miss community went all-in financially. Then, the unthinkable: before you could finally enjoy the fruits on your labor, before you could coach your first game in the College Football Playoff, you leave to take the LSU job. 

You left Ole Miss. You tried to burn the place down on the way out, and then again months later after everyone had moved on. But you weren’t done yet. 

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You arrived at LSU and brought the circus with you, even though — and here’s the key to the sad, predictable story — you didn’t need it. LSU is a beast. LSU has won big before you, and will win big after you.

Everybody wanted in your big tent circus at LSU because there’s nothing bigger in the state. Not even politics. You knew this, and fueled their passion with your circus. 

You figured out how to bring those two unstoppable forces in the state — football and politics — together to do your dirty work. To take on anyone who dared step in your path of winning right now. A happy, fruitful marriage with the SEC, be damned.

Then you lose to Ole Miss in the biggest game ever in Oxford. Then lose to, of all things, Kentucky. I don’t care how good Kentucky is, an LSU team with the most expensive roster in college football shouldn’t lose that game. 

Then you get blown out by bitter rival Alabama — and left a note for everyone to read as they waked into the football facility. 

You blame the fans, you blame the media. You blame players. 

Instead of simply saying we had two weeks to prepare, and we failed you. We weren’t ready for the tendencies that Alabama broke in its two weeks to prepare. 

We didn’t do enough to make ourselves less predictable. The season isn’t over for us, we’re better than what we’ve shown. 

We can still reach our goals if we stay together. “We” is more powerful than “you.”

Eventually, the great ones — the championship coaches — figure that out. If you’re going to point fingers, buddy, it starts with your big chair.

This mess is at your feet, Lane. You’re the blame. 

You and your circus.

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB. Listen to him daily, from 12-2 p.m., on 1010XL-Jacksonville.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lane Kiffin wants someone to blame for LSU mess. Try the mirror | Opinion

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