It’s been building for ten months, and Lane Kiffin’s return to Oxford is finally here.
The former Ole Miss head coach will officially return to town Saturday afternoon as LSU’s head coach, and the city is making sure every security measure is in place.
Usually, this would be just another weekend of SEC football in the South. Parties in the ‘Grove,’ fans enjoying the tailgate scene, bars overflowing into the streets as supporters keep themselves lubricated during the day and the police department only dealing with a smaller number of problems.
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But, this is obviously not just another game-day in Oxford for the police department.
The built-up frustration over the offseason storylines surrounding Lane Kiffin will finally reach a boiling point before Saturday even arrives.
I don’t think folks are underselling the amount of vitriol that will be spewed towards the former Ole Miss head coach when lamenting over the stories created over the past ten months.
Also, this won’t be Kiffin’s first time back in Oxford since his departure, as he has visited numerous times, even taking in a few yoga classes in the process.
His daughter, Landry, still attends Ole Miss, though most of her time is spent in Baton Rouge with boyfriend Whit Weeks. He just also happens to be LSU’s starting linebacker, which I’m sure leads to some interesting conversations at practice between him and Kiffin.
But, this weekend is all about a return to the city that put Lane back on the map, and they are waiting for him.
This was not a process created by the local town hall during a weekly meeting.
The amount of police, state patrol, federal law enforcement and out-of-state help that will be roaming Oxford this weekend should make for a pretty safe day in terms of fan behavior.
One would think, at least.
On Tuesday morning, the Mobile, Alabama, police department confirmed they are sending their crowd-control units to Oxford for the weekend.
“The Mobile Police Department’s Mounted Unit will be in Oxford, MS from Thursday, September 17th – Saturday, September 19th working with local law enforcement during the area’s upcoming event,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
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In addition to the help from Mobile, the City of New Orleans will also be sending its mounted police to the Ole Miss campus this weekend to provide help with crowd control. Also, sources tell OutKick that there will be additional support for the LSU football team, with Louisiana State Patrol sending additional members to Oxford, more than usual for a road game.
You can expect a large amount of security around Lane Kiffin at all times this weekend, while the school will also take measures to not give out where the team is staying on the night before Saturday’s showdown.
Look, there is no love lost between LSU and the Rebels.
Lost in the chaos of Lane Kiffin returning is the fact that these two teams have a storied history in the ‘Magnolia Bowl’, and there is plenty of hatred already instilled between these fans.
But, that doesn’t mean Pete Golding isn’t imploring his fans to use that Southern hospitality at its finest.
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“To me, what this place has always been about, why so many people love coming here and respect this place is because of the people who are here and how they make (other fans) feel when they come here. Be there early and be loud,” Pete Golding noted.
“But I think at the end of the day, there’s still a respect piece. And this place has always been known to have really, really good people. Let’s not lose that over a game or a person or anything like that.”
As for Lane Kiffin, he seemed pretty content with the fact he is playing the villain, which actually takes the attention off his football team, and puts the pressure on Ole Miss.
“I guess there’s real safety issues and stuff, so there’s people that have a plan for that,” Kiffin mentioned. “I told the players today, ‘Man, you don’t have anything to worry about as far as, like, attention on you all week and everything. There’s going to be so much attention, hatred, everything on me. You just get to go play. Really, the pressure’s on them.”
That’s one way to look at it. As for the upcoming weekend in Oxford, you can go ahead and expect one thing:
Chaos.
