Lane Kiffin Pat McAfee College GameDay Credit: ESPN
By Matt Yoder on

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It looks like Pat McAfee’s next country rap album just might feature a duet with LSU Tigers head coach Lane Kiffin.

The embattled coach sat down with the College GameDay cast as the pregame show emanated from Baton Rouge before LSU hosts Clemson in their season opener. But LSU isn’t just the center of the college football world; it’s currently the biggest lightning rod in all of sports at the moment.

Kiffin and LSU are unleashing drama as we’ve never seen before with their efforts to play players who were at NFL training camps and signed professional contracts. And even though a court order legally allowed them to play this week, LSU is holding Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris out of their game against Clemson because of the threat of punishment from the SEC. The conference has gone as far as to file a lawsuit against LSU and even threaten to kick them out of the league entirely.

But watching College GameDay on Saturday morning, all of the insanity that Kiffin has stirred up took a backseat to jokes about the situation and praise about his coaching ability.

It started with Pat McAfee thanking him as a daily sports show host, presumably for giving him so much content over the past several weeks.

It continued with Nick Saban complimenting his former assistant and saying he was going to do a great job at LSU. Of course, Saban was advising Kiffin behind the scenes while he made the extremely controversial decision to leave Ole Miss on the doorstep of the College Football Playoff for the Tigers. Saban also talked about the magic of running onto the field at Tiger Stadium for the first time as head coach.

But it was no comparison to the laughable exchange Kiffin had with McAfee, where he joked about how he drew counsel from the ESPN weekday host on what it’s like to be the “most hated” men in their fields because they were both doing great things.

“That’s why I’ve really appreciated our friendship and this week, your guidance with me about, you know, because between you and I we’re about the two most hated people there are. You told me, ‘Hey, just focus on it; don’t worry about the noise. A lot of times, to do great things, you’re going to be hated,” Kiffin said. That drew an “Amen, brother” from McAfee.

Kiffin is likely referencing the release of McAfee’s debut album, “The Diary of a Polarizing Figure,” which preceded a couple of new prominent roles for McAfee at ESPN. That album, and much of McAfee’s existence, tries to portray him as a threat to an establishment that has actually fully embraced him. McAfee’s shtick about being polarizing when he’s landing major movie roles, hanging out with the President of the United States, and having ESPN pay him tens of millions of dollars is at odds with the growing reality of his unimpeded rise as ESPN’s face of the network. The only thing that’s polarizing is just how hard he is trying to convince everyone that he’s polarizing.

But whereas McAfee’s polarization is largely a product of his own internal conflicts, Kiffin’s is fully earned. His track record speaks for itself, and what he’s currently doing at LSU may be his most controversial step yet. But if there’s one thing that’s going to get Pat McAfee onside, it’s any reference to the haters.

Given how College GameDay has covered Lane Kiffin in the past, it wasn’t a surprise to see ESPN’s flagship college football show give him the softest of softball interviews. But it was still disappointing to see him not be challenged on a serious issue: his apparent plan to completely blow up college football. At least you can say that it wasn’t a universal sentiment at the network, as over on SEC Network, Paul Finebaum was torching Kiffin and what he has unleashed upon the sport. If only someone on the Gameday set had just an ounce of that same energy. And it will be fascinating to see if any tunes change when GameDay visits Oxford for LSU’s game at Ole Miss in two weeks.

About Matt Yoder

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