Former Florida State and Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher doesn’t like the fact that multiple Mississippi State assistants won’t be available to coach the Rebels in Thursday night’s Fiesta Bowl game.
Four offensive assistants will accompany Lane Kiffin to LSU. While offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. and running backs coach Kevin Smith will be with the Rebels against Miami, tight ends coach Joe Cox and wide receivers coach George McDonald will not be with the team. Fisher believes Kiffin has become a “villain” by leaving.
advertise
On Wednesday night’s “Inside Access” show on the ACC Network, Fisher posited that Kiffin “wasn’t counting on, [Ole Miss] As Kiffin recruits for his new job — which he believes gives him a better chance at a national championship — Mississippi State is one win away from playing for the national title itself.
“He believed that his leaving dysfunction was causing their dysfunction,” Fisher said. “No, it brought them together. Those coaches went back because they loved the kids, and they did that, and now he’s brought them back. When you decide at the time and say they can coach, they should coach all the time. I’m not saying they can’t go recruit during the day, and during the week, game plans can be made — you have computers, you can break down the game plan, call the kids, have Zoom meetings, and then I’ll come back to the game, and I’ll come back two days before the game. That’s where he got it wrong.
“He thinks he’s being viewed as a villain. He’s right now. Because that’s wrong. Those kids had a chance to do some things — you know I have a national championship ring? … You don’t get those opportunities. What they did. To give them a chance to win a national championship … you made that decision a month ago and you lived by that decision throughout the playoffs. He was wrong to do that, and I would say he was wrong. I have no problem saying that.”
New Mississippi State head coach Pete Golding has a chance to improve to a 3-0 record in the College Football Playoff, and Kiffin has not coached a playoff game before. When Kiffin was about to leave for LSU, Goldin, the team’s defensive coordinator, was named coach at Mississippi State. The Rebels have defeated Tulane and Georgia and are two wins away from their first national title in more than 60 years.
On Wednesday, Goldin made clear that he wants to build a program so that “one person, one player or something like that” doesn’t destroy it.
“I’m replaceable, you’re replaceable, our guys are replaceable,” Golding said. “I think you want to build a program and have it go in the right direction and one person, one player or anything like that isn’t going to derail that program.
“There’s so much invested in this and one guy who has been tuned right is not going to have such a huge impact on something. If so, it’s probably not built right. If one coach in any sport can dictate the outcome of it, he probably doesn’t have a very good staff. I mean, if one player can dictate the outcome of it, we’re probably not recruiting and creating the right depth.”
