Lane Kiffin makes ridiculous excuses for SEC’s poor recent performance in College Football Playoff

Oh the goalposts, they’re moving.

The 2025-2026 college football season appeared to provide a definitive answer to a common sports-related question: Which conference is the best right now? After years of SEC dominance, the last few years have evolved into the Big Ten. The last three national champions have come from the Big Ten: Indiana, Ohio State and Michigan.

And more importantly, not a single SEC team has even made it to the National Championship Game in the last three tries. It’s a shame for a conference that bills itself as the best, where games “mean more,” where the conference commissioner defends seven teams in a 12-team playoff field.

“I actually think we deserve seven,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said, referring to the number of conference teams required to make the playoffs. “I think seven teams in the top 14, half of the top 14 teams, are from the SEC. That’s an indication that this league is different, the expectations are different, the competition is different, and the awards have to respect each of those elements.”

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When you make such statements, you need to support it. Especially considering that the SEC’s success came primarily in the pre-NIL era.

This is just an example. There are many, many more. And we can add another lame excuse for the SEC’s poor performance from a new interview with LSU head coach Lane Kiffin.

Kiffin appeared on Barstool Sports’ “Pardon My Take,” where “Big Cat” asked him about the debate between the Big Ten and the SEC. “Is the SEC dead, though,” he asked, “because the Big Ten is now stumping the SEC?”

“That’s fair,” Kiffin said. “That’s a fair statement.”

“PFT” asked, “Why do you think it has been so long since the SEC has won an award?” he asked. At this point, Kiffin started by putting forward a new version of the same excuse.

“There’s a lot to it (about it). I think it’s set up well for the top teams right now. And it’s going to get better,” Kiffin said. “We’re going to go nine games and our downfield is tougher than theirs. Our downfield is tougher than theirs. So we’re going to beat each other more and they’re going to sit there and play two to three tough games a year.

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“I mean, their best teams and our best teams are better when they go to the playoffs. And that’s important. That’s why I’ve always been a fan of staying eight games; whoever we want to play, don’t tell us who we should play, let’s make our own game. Where I just was, at Ole Miss, we were 20-0 in regular-season non-conference games, we didn’t play big in the openers. That’s a four-year stretch, losing three of the four openers.

“’This is so cool, whatever,’ but you don’t get rewarded for it.

“The (Big Ten) schedule where half of your games you don’t have to get up, it’s just a mental burden. Plus, a lot of your good players get cut in the fourth quarter, so you have fewer games at the end of the year,” he added. “They’re one of the really good teams out there, rested their good players for conference play at the end of the year.”

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This is a level of nonsense, lack of awareness, and excuse-making that is impressive even for the SEC.

LSU football head coach Lane Kiffin leaves La. on Dec. 1, 2025. He’s speaking at the South Stadium Club at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge. (Matthew Hinton/Imagn Images)

Kiffin congratulates himself for scheduling easy non-conference games at Ole Miss and denouncing the move to a nine-game conference schedule. He then says the Big Ten, which plays nine conference games, has it easier than the SEC. This is, of course, ridiculous. If you play one less conference game and give yourself four free wins a year, you’re at an advantage, not a disadvantage. Even if an extra conference game is played against a top-50 team instead of a top-35 team, the probability of winning increases from 99% against Furman to 73% against Rutgers. And this difference is important. Too much.

There’s also the timing argument, which may be the most flawed discussion any coach has ever made. SEC teams famously schedule bye weeks in November to prepare for bigger games later in the season.

In 2025, Ole Miss under Kiffin plays The Citadel on Nov. 9. They won 49-0 and Trinidad Chambliss left the game midway through the third quarter. He criticizes other teams for their ability to rest players late in the season while doing the same thing he did at Ole Miss. The 2025 schedule was so perfectly crafted that the Rebels did not leave the state of Mississippi after October 25th. They didn’t give him a free bye week in November of 2024, but in 2023, they hosted ULM on Nov. 18 to allow the starters to rest.

Compare that like this: In 2025, USC goes from playing Notre Dame in South Bend on Oct. 18, to Nebraska in Lincoln on Nov. 1, to Northwestern in Los Angeles on Nov. 8, to Iowa in Los Angeles on Nov. 15, to Eugene, Oregon, on Nov. 22 and back to UCLA in Los Angeles on Nov. 29.

There are no starting five players rested in these matches. In the final AP Top 25, Oregon finished No. 4, Notre Dame No. 10, and Iowa No. 17. So does Kiffin think playing in Nebraska is an “easy stadium” compared to his difficult trip to Starkville?

This is ridiculous and he’s just making things up to excuse the SEC’s poor performance.

Ohio State traveled to Purdue, UCLA, Rutgers and Penn State in Michigan to finish the season. While Indiana finished the regular season by playing Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game, Ole Miss rested and Kiffin hopped on LSU’s private jet.

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USC sees itself as a potential playoff team this year. Their schedules include a road trip to defending national champion Indiana, Ohio State, Oregon, Washington and a road trip to Penn State. Does that look like two to three tough games a year?

USC Trojans head coach Lincoln Riley reacts during the second half against the UCLA Bruins at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Nov. 29, 2025. USC defeated UCLA 29-10 in the NCAA football game. (Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News)

Let’s look at travel. LSU’s longest “ride” is approximately 750 miles one way. Their total travel throughout the year is around 2,980 miles. They only leave the Central time zone twice all season to skip an entire hour on trips to Gainesville and Knoxville. Meanwhile, USC has three individual More than 2,000 miles of road travel. Their total travel during the season is 9,115 miles. USC plays in the Eastern Time Zone more often than LSU next season, adding a game in a different two-hour time zone. those things importantAs Kiffin would smugly say.

That’s what SEC coaches do. First, they won championships because the conference was the best and their teams were more battle-ready than the Big Ten or other conferences. Their conference is now very difficult, so their teams are exhausted from the one-month break between the end of the regular season and the playoffs, while also enjoying the FCS bye week in November.

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Because the stadiums are big, they demand that any SEC team with five or six wins make the playoffs, then ignore the results when those teams are embarrassed. Remember, they went 1-8 in bowl games last year, including losses to “lower teams” like Illinois, Iowa, Houston and Virginia. Indiana beat Alabama 38-3 in a game that wasn’t that close. They were 0-3 in the playoffs against teams outside the SEC Power Four conference.

That’s why Kiffin is making things up now; We cannot accept the truth when using excuses is much more effective.