Over the years, Ole Miss Rebels’ head football coach Lane Kiffin has drawn a lot of attention for his social media posts. His latest of note came on X Saturday, where he joined the chorus of people criticizing the College Football Playoff Committee for selections of Indiana and SMU after those teams’ disappointing playoff performances.
But what was perhaps even more of note was the way Fox Sports lead CFB analyst Joel Klatt went in on him:
If your team played half as well as you tweet you would likely be in https://t.co/tgpIFpxo8I
— Joel Klatt (@joelklatt) December 21, 2024
This was only part of Klatt’s commentary on people criticizing the CFP selections after the fact, with him chalking much of that up to “partisan bias” from people associated with ESPN and its associated SEC and ACC coverage. But it was particularly of note to see him roast a sitting head coach like Kiffin this way. And that got some notice from others, including ESPN NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky, and that pushback got its own response from Klatt:
too far?
— Joel Klatt (@joelklatt) December 21, 2024
There’s a lot of important context here. Kiffin has long been known for being provocative on social media platforms. And this year, he lobbied for his team (9-3, 5-3 SEC) to be in before the penultimate rankings reveal, then blasted the CFP committee after that, then blasted them again after their final rankings that saw the Rebels ranked No. 14 (and the third team out). So nothing here is new for him.
It’s also not unusual to see Klatt going in hard at CFB people and takes he disagrees with. He’s done that throughout his time as Fox’s lead analyst and beyond, and has done so both on-air and on social media. But it is interesting to see him bash an active CFB head coach like Kiffin.
Although, in fairness, this can be read as praise for Kiffin’s X skills. It’s not specified what the levels of X posting and CFB play are, or how they relate to each other. Maybe Klatt just thinks Kiffin’s particularly good at posting. And maybe he thinks if Kiffin’s team can hit half that level when it comes to their on-field play, they will deserve a playoff berth.
[Joel Klatt on X]
