Lane Kiffin Is Built For This Era
Cole Cubelic
Lane is almost perfect for today's college football. Because we always viewed this as this laissez-faire, nonchalant, who-gives-a-rip attitude, when in reality, what I think it's kind of become is — we give you this, therefore we expect that. You can do it, and we will help you be really good at it, or you can leave, and we don't care.
Context
Cole's reframe of Lane — not lazy or apathetic, but transactional in a way that fits the NIL/portal era. The "next guy up" track record at Ole Miss (Austin Simmons subbing in vs. Georgia and being good, Dae'Quan Wright becoming one of their better players nobody saw coming) is evidence that the system makes the player as much as the player makes the system.
Cole's setup: "Who was the last quarterback that failed under Lane Kiffin?" The answer requires going back to FAU year one. Pair with Lane's ability to "simplify things and put people in position to have a high rate of success" — which Cole says is what makes the LSU year-one rebuild plausible despite the offensive line concerns and Sam Leavitt's foot.