Lane Kiffin used to love field-stormings in college football, which mainly featured happy fans rushing the field to celebrate with their team.
The vibes were positive.
“A problem has become that they’re different than they used to be,” said Kiffin, who was recently followed off of Kentucky’s field by college-aged males raising a middle finger with one hand and recording with another.
“A lot of that’s because of the phones,” Kiffin added. “Everybody wants their moment.”
After another field storming at Tennessee after a win over then-No. 6 Alabama, Kiffin was asked Sunday for his feelings on the mob celebration.
He’s soured on them.
“What we used to have was just fans having fun with each other and excited and going to try to find their team. And now that’s not really the case, a lot of them, because everybody’s got their phones and they all want their moment. So let us go see if we can get a coach or a player to say something back and run right into them and hold the phone in their face and all that,” Kiffin said.
“I think the reasoning for it has changed and what happens,” he added. “So it’s not really a safe event because of that.”
Kiffin commended the Southeastern Conference and “certain schools” within the league for trying to prevent field-stormings. Ole Miss held back its fans after a 32-24 win over LSU, which was Kiffin’s return to Oxford, Mississippi, after six years coaching the Rebels.
There wasn’t much resistance on Oct. 10 in Lexington, Kentucky, when Wildcat fans stormed the field after a 35-34 overtime win over LSU. There were fans trailing Kiffin, flipping him the bird. Others confronted LSU players.
The SEC has instituted a $500,000 fine against a school, payable to the school’s opponent, when a field is rushed.
“It’s a matter of how serious does the school actually really take it,” Kiffin said. “Or do they say, which I get too, ‘Hey man, $500,000 (fine) but we’d beat a top 10 team, it’s worth it.”
Kiffin was on the happier end of a field rush in 2024 when Ole Miss beat then-No. 2 Georgia in Oxford, Mississippi.
But Kiffin asked reporters to go back and watch his reaction.
“I was mad when they rushed the field,” Kiffin said, “because it’s just not what we’re supposed to do.”
This season, Kiffin has found himself at the center of an unrelated controversy surrounding SEC rules.
He tried adding multiple seniors who were made eligible for a fifth season of NCAA competition after they brought a lawsuit in a Baton Rouge court. But the SEC instituted a fine equal to 50% of a sport’s budget and a half-season suspension of a team’s coach if athletes were rostered who previously signed with NFL teams.
Kiffin ultimately decided not to roster tight end Dae’Quan Wright, who had been in training camp with the Browns, and defensive tackle Zxavian Wright, who was with the Saints but never practiced because of injury. But Kiffin remains a defendant in a lawsuit filed by the SEC in federal court because of the back-and-forth.
The SEC has alleged LSU officials demonstrated a lack of “institutional control.”
“I don’t know, wasn’t there a big uproar about people not following SEC rules? If you didn’t, there’s gonna be all this?” Kiffin asked Sunday, seemingly referring back to his own dustup with the conference.
“But then in these instances,” he added about field-stormings, “it doesn’t matter?”
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