Inside the night the Dodgers became back-to-back World Series champs — and Yamamoto became an L.A. legend
TORONTO — A 66-year-old man with a pierced left ear and a backward cap stood in the outfield at Rogers Centre early Sunday morning and beheld all that surrounded him. Tri-color confetti littered the turf, the videoboard in center field touted the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ latest World Series championship, and Osamu Yada — the man who made it all possible — grinned at his great fortune.
Yada Sensei, as he is known, plays a number of roles for Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, whose performance in Los Angeles’ 5-4 victory in Game 7 of the World Series will go down in the annals of baseball history. Yada is a biomechanist first and foremost, obsessive about how the body’s movement patterns apply force to a baseball. Beyond that, he is a philosophical guru, a bridge between the ocean-wide chasm that separates Japanese baseball, where Yamamoto formed his foundation, and American baseball, where he erected his masterwork upon it.
“He’s the person who built me,” Yamamoto said.
What Yada shaped blossomed into something mythical during an all-time great World Series that culminated with a Game 7 for the ages, requiring 11 nerve-wracking, drama-filled innings. Working on no rest after a six-inning, 96-pitch effort to set up the Dodgers for a Game 6 victory and send the series to a winner-takes-all seventh game, Yamamoto materialized from the Dodgers’ bullpen to spread 34 pitches over 2⅔ scoreless innings and secure the win that delivered Los Angeles its second consecutive championship and third in six years. All of that on the heels of Yamamoto’s complete-game triumph in Game 2, which followed a start-to-finish effort in his previous outing in the National League Championship Series.
The only other pitcher in baseball history to chase a Game 6 start with a Game 7 relief outing on zero days’ rest and emerge with victories in both was Randy Johnson in the 2001 World Series, widely regarded among the best ever. Both pitchers won World Series MVP awards, riding fastballs that neared triple digits and off-speed pitches that bedeviled the hitters hubristic enough to offer at them. The similarities end there. At 5-foot-10, Yamamoto stands a full foot shorter than Johnson, who leveraged his size into five Cy Young Awards and a first-ballot Hall of Fame induction. Yamamoto, at 170 pounds, learned through Yada to find his power from the place where body meets nature and the two coalesce harmoniously.
“Think about a tree,” Yada said. “A tree has a trunk, it has branches, it has roots. In the sports world, we tell people to move their hands this way, their feet this way, and that’s just moving the branches. The most important thing with the tree is the trunk. It can’t just be firm, either. If the trunk is hollow, then it might just snap in half easily. So you can think about what I’m doing as building a strong trunk that can stand up to strong rain and wind. There’s nothing wrong with any individual thing that’s being taught over here. It’s just that I’m trying to have a perspective of the whole, and I don’t give him any specific instruction on any individual thing. Just trying to keep an eye on the whole, the bigger vision.”
That vision registered 20/10 during this postseason, a monthlong love letter to baseball. The 2025 World Series started with the Blue Jays, seeking their first championship since 1993, dropping a nine-run inning and sending the whole of Rogers Centre into a frenzy and ended with the Dodgers salvaging their season with a game-tying home run from the unlikeliest hitter with one out in the ninth inning and going ahead with another homer in the 11th. It dispensed memorable moments like an IV drip, consistent and satiating. For Game 7 to live up to the standard set by the previous six, which included an 18-inning classic Game 3 won by the Dodgers on a walk-off home run and a star-making Game 5 by Toronto rookie right-hander Trey Yesavage, only reinforced the 121st World Series’ place among its most extolled brethren.
With their pitching running on fumes, the Dodgers had turned to Shohei Ohtani, Yamamoto’s countryman and the finest talent the game has ever seen, to start Game 7 on three days’ rest. In the third inning, Bo Bichette blasted a 442-foot, three-run home run off him, igniting the 44,713 in attendance and forcing Los Angeles into scramble mode. Things got hairy in the fourth, when Justin Wrobleski hit Andrés Giménez with an up-and-in pitch that prompted the benches and bullpens to clear. The tension intensified in the eighth, when a Max Muncy solo home run cut Los Angeles’ deficit to 4-3. And it never relented during the game’s final innings, when the Dodgers, who batted .203 and were outscored 34-26 in the series, turned to Yamamoto to play savior.
All the while, Yada remained calm, a palliative presence. While Yada says to “just think of me as a loudmouth grandpa,” he is the key that unlocked the whole of Yamamoto. During a presentation to Dodgers employees in the spring of 2024, Yamamoto’s first with the team after signing a 12-year, $325 million contract upon his departure from Nippon Professional Baseball’s Orix Buffaloes, Yada tried to explain Yamamoto’s training habits using comparisons from the world of anime. Yamamoto, he said, was like Goku in “Dragon Ball Z” or One-Punch Man, what they do and who they are indistinguishable. Yamamoto was forever seeking to harness the power of nature that takes a man and makes him something more.
“There are things that are natural in nature, and then there are things that are normal in the sports world,” Yada said. “And what I’ve been able to do is teach Yoshinobu about things that occur in the natural world. And because the general philosophies and the things that are accepted are so different when you look at it from a sporting sense, it seems like something that’s outrageous.”
IN OSAKA, JAPAN, sits a two-story building, about 1,200 square feet total, that serves as the nerve center of Yada’s operation — “Japan’s No. 1 Spiritual and Physical Strength Shop,” its website proudly states. The path to growth, the site says, is through tariki hongan (relying on other power) and jiriki hongan (self-reliance). Yada ends every post on the website with the same two sentences: “I hope you have a good day today. Don’t forget your childhood and pursue your dreams!”
Yamamoto met Yada in Osaka, where the pitcher arrived in 2017 as an 18-year-old selected in the fourth round of the NPB draft by the Buffaloes. Yada works outside the professional-baseball infrastructure in Japan and is regarded by some as an interloper. In Yamamoto, he found a willing and eager pupil. With a natural curiosity and voracious work ethic, Yamamoto’s greatest quality, Yada said, was his patience.
“Yoshinobu will say things like, ‘I want to be able to do this,’ ” Yada said. “And I’ll tell him, ‘OK, in two years you’ll be able to do that.’ And then in two years he is actually able to do that.”
Within two years of joining the Buffaloes, Yamamoto was a fixture in their rotation and atop ERA leaderboards in NPB. He won the Sawamura Award, given to the best starting pitcher in Japan, in 2021, 2022 and 2023, the first to capture three consecutive in more than 60 years. During the 2023 season, his closest friend, Yoichi Ishihara, spent the summer in Toronto to be able to tell Yamamoto what life in a major league city looked like. Yamamoto had conquered Japanese baseball and set his eyes on the big leagues.
For years, Dodgers scouts had admired him. They marveled not only at his stuff but the methods that extracted it from him. Yamamoto was the antithesis of the muscled-up, high-effort pitchers the American youth-development system churned out. He never lifted a weight under Yada’s tutelage. Instead, they focused on mobility and balance, breathing and pliability. He did handstands and threw mini-soccer balls. Yada introduced him to a featherweight javelin so light that any deviation from proper mechanical sequencing would cause it to flutter and die. Over time, Yamamoto learned to launch it great distances with a delicate touch.
“It’s easy to use one muscle at 100% output,” Yada said, “but what Yoshinobu is trying to do is to use 600 different muscles at 10% output. You can’t think about 600 things at once and throw. So it’s learning to prioritize which parts of the movement are the most important. And learning to have that conversation with yourself about where there might be imbalances and how to correct those things.
“We often talk about moving specific joints in certain ways, and when you try to approach what we’re trying to do, you always run into these conflicts between various things. The way of approaching things that way can be explained by Newtonian physics. What he’s trying to do is explained more by Eastern philosophies. And so it’s difficult to find a common language, and it’s difficult to talk about.”
Front office executives and scouts flocked to Osaka in 2023, aware that Yamamoto was likely to enter Major League Baseball’s posting system — the portal through which Japanese players are transferred to big league teams — that forthcoming winter. Yada invited officials to his headquarters to better understand the ideology that seemed so foreign.
“Watching people work at his clinic in Osaka is special,” said Galen Carr, the Dodgers’ vice president of player personnel and a fixture in international scouting. “They do things with their bodies — contortions and twisting and balance and strength — and it’s body weight, not stuff we do here. And somehow that kid throws 98 and he’s 5-10. … Maybe we can learn something from him.”
Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers president of baseball operations, wasn’t sold until he saw it himself. At the Kyocera Dome in Osaka, he watched Yamamoto long-toss from the right-field corner to home plate. Yamamoto wasn’t taking crow hops or hurling parabolic throws. “I wish someone had videoed me watching that before the game,” Friedman said, “because my mouth was agape.” Even if the list of short, slim, front-line right-handed pitchers could be counted on one hand, the Dodgers were already perfectly happy to get into the outlier business, giving Ohtani a 10-year, $700 million contract Dec. 9.
The 45-day posting window for Yamamoto had opened by then, and a bidding frenzy was underway. What started in the $175 million range quickly ascended past $200 million. The New York Mets, New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies felt the same way about Yamamoto as the Dodgers. They looked past the questions of whether he was too short or his hands too small to spin a major league ball. They believed.
The shockwaves from his contract rippled with similar ferocity to Ohtani’s. At least Ohtani had dominated MLB for six years and won a pair of MVPs. Yamamoto hadn’t thrown a single big league pitch, and the Dodgers guaranteed him more money than any pitcher in the game’s history. And when he arrived at spring training flanked by a sexagenarian whose standard uniform was a blazer over a T-shirt, teammates initially side-eyed him, struggling to fathom the multitudes Yamamoto contained.
Soon enough they cherished the whole of Yamamoto. His diligence astounded them. His pitches — fastball, sinker, splitter, cutter, slider, curveball — wowed them. Yada endeared himself quickly to the rest of the pitching staff as well as former MVP Mookie Betts, all of whom learned to appreciate that behind the endless appetite for Sprite and lemonade and other break-room foodstuffs was a professor of the craft, someone set upon making Yamamoto every bit as good in MLB as he was in NPB.
“It’s the most meticulous game plan I’ve ever seen,” Dodgers right-hander Ben Casparius said. “He’s the best, purest pitcher I’ve ever seen in my life. And I don’t think it’s close.”
The ups and downs of Yamamoto’s debut season — he spent three months on the injured list with arm issues — vanished by the postseason last year, when he helped carry an injury-depleted Los Angeles to a championship. He resisted the urge to alter his training methodologies over the winter, sticking with Yada’s program and long tossing almost daily. Greatness found him this season, when he finished fourth in MLB with a 2.49 ERA over 173⅔ innings, and his back-to-back complete games in the playoffs marked the first such feat for pitchers in nearly a quarter century.
It was no surprise, then, that Yamamoto volunteered to pitch in Game 7 a day after he kept Los Angeles’ season alive. Following Game 6, Friedman received a text from Will Ireton, the team’s interpreter, that indicated Yamamoto was receiving treatment with the intention of pitching the next day. Yada indicated that Friedman need not worry about injury or effectiveness. Yamamoto’s stuff was going to be the same regardless of rest. Another text arrived Saturday morning, saying trainers were preparing Yamamoto to pitch, and one more after he played catch, affirming his ability to get meaningful outs for manager Dave Roberts.
Still, the entire conceit felt too good to be true, a self-laid trap-in-waiting. Even if Yamamoto did enter the game, how long could he go? How sore would his arm feel? As much as the Dodgers believed in Yamamoto and Yada Sensei, surely there were limits to the power of their partnership.
At 11:31 p.m., after one of the most implausible home runs in World Series history, they would learn the answer.
DURING THE ON-FIELD celebration of Los Angeles’ 3-1 victory in Game 6, teammates moshed around Miguel Rojas, who had caught a dart of a throw from Kiké Hernández to complete a game-ending double play. Amid the hugs and backslaps, Rojas felt a sharp pain in his rib area. The timing could not have been worse.
The 36-year-old Rojas spent nearly a decade in the minor leagues before debuting with the Dodgers in 2014. Los Angeles traded him to the Marlins that winter — in a deal that set Hernández back to the Dodgers — and saw him grow into a beloved utility man, the conscience of the clubhouse. He returned to Los Angeles in a January 2023 trade and spent the past three seasons as a versatile option for Roberts. He was slated to start at shortstop before Betts’ switch from outfield to the position resigned Rojas to a part-time role.
Nonetheless, Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow said, “Miggy is the glue of our team.” He wields the microphone on team flights and bus rides. He is, Glasnow said, “the curator of s–t-talking in the best possible way.” And in Game 6, with center fielder Andy Pages in an October-long slump, Rojas — without a hit since Oct. 1 — was named the starting second baseman and No. 9 hitter, with Roberts moving super-utility man Tommy Edman to center and benching Pages.
On Friday night, the revival of that lineup for Game 7 was in question. The Dodgers went to bed believing Rojas would not be available and that they might need to replace him on the roster with outfielder Michael Conforto. Rojas woke up Saturday morning still in pain. He went to the stadium at 1:30 p.m., received “a lot of meds and injections,” he said, and tested out the rib in the batting cage. The pain was dulled enough that Rojas told Roberts he wanted to play. Roberts acceded. Rojas took another round of painkillers before first pitch and found himself at the plate in the ninth inning, with the Dodgers trailing, 4-3, and one out.
What happened next defined a Dodgers team outhit, outscored and outplayed by the Blue Jays for the majority of the series. Rojas was looking for a fastball from Toronto closer Jeff Hoffman to hit up the middle. He swung over a first-pitch slider in the dirt. Hoffman bounced a slider and fastball to move the count to 2-1 before Rojas fouled off a pair of fastballs. He stared at a slider just above the strike zone to work the count full. On the seventh pitch of the at-bat, Hoffman hung a slider. And Rojas, who in 4,159 career plate appearances has hit only 57 home runs, uncorked a swing for eternity.
Only once before had a player in Game 7 of the World Series hit a game-tying or go-ahead home run. As the ball sailed into the Blue Jays’ bullpen in left field, Rojas joined Bill Mazeroski, author of the homer that ended the 1960 World Series. The score was 4-4. The World Series that had played even for six games had reached that state in the ninth inning of its seventh.
“When he wasn’t getting his playing time, he went to the coaches and said, ‘Hey, how can I help out?’ ” Muncy said. “And he did everything that they asked him to do. He’s the ultimate team guy, and for him to get that home run to tie it up — it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.”
The tears of joy nearly morphed into those of sadness come the bottom of the inning. Bichette singled with one out off Dodgers starter Blake Snell, on in relief, and was pinch run for by Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Addison Barger drew a walk in a nine-pitch plate appearance. Roberts went to the mound. The bullpen door swung open. Out came Yamamoto.
“My heart was jumping out of my chest,” said Ishihara, Yamamoto’s close friend, “because I didn’t think it would actually happen.”
On his first pitch to Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk, Yamamoto ripped a 93-mph splitter for a strike. Immediately it was clear Yada was correct: the quality of Yamamoto’s stuff would not be a question. His command of it, on the other hand, was tested on the next pitch, a sinker that ran inside and clipped Kirk’s hand, loading the bases for Blue Jays center fielder Daulton Varsho.
Roberts’ strategic acumen, honed over nearly 120 postseason games, went into overdrive. He inserted Pages, a better defender with a far better arm than Edman, into center field, knowing a sacrifice fly could end the World Series. He pulled the infield in. And he let Yamamoto and catcher Will Smith go to work, knowing they needed to keep the ball down in the strike zone and hopefully induce a groundball. A splitter missed low. Varsho fouled off another. He stared at a 97 mph fastball for strike two. And on a third splitter, at the bottom of the zone and away from the left-handed Varsho, he yanked a grounder toward Rojas, who reached across his body to snag it — the pain searing in his side — and made an off-balance throw home. Had Kiner-Falefa taken even a one-step secondary lead off third base, he would have been safe. He didn’t. Smith leaned to grab Rojas’ throw that just beat a sliding Kiner-Falefa for the force.
Toronto wasn’t done. Ernie Clement stepped to the plate. He already had three hits, pushing him past Randy Arozarena for tops on the single-postseason hit list with 30. And he golfed a first-pitch Yamamoto curveball into deep left-center field. Pages and Hernández converged and collided, just as the ball settled into Pages’ glove. Hernández lay face down on the warning track, convinced the ball had skittered away and the series was over. Pages asked him if he was OK. Hernández wasn’t, because he thought they’d lost the World Series. Instead, Game 7 was headed to extra innings.
Like Toronto the previous half-inning, Los Angeles loaded the bases in the 10th with one out. Pages grounded into a force play at home, and three pitches later, reliever Seranthony Dominguez fielded a flip from first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., danced around the first-base bag and toe-tapped it just before Hernández’s foot struck. Replay review upheld the call and sent the game to the bottom of the 10th, when Yamamoto emerged from the dugout for a second inning of work. He sat down three hitters on 13 pitches and surpassed Johnson’s four relief outs the day after his Game 6 start.
With a chance to play hero again in the top of the 11th, Rojas grounded out to third and, with the pain meds wearing off, felt a twinge in his side in the process. Ohtani, so brilliant all postseason, the one hitter upon whom the Dodgers could rely, grounded out. Up stepped Smith, who entered the postseason with a hairline fracture in his right hand. Elevated to the No. 2 spot because of Betts’ struggles, Smith worked the count to 2-0 against Toronto’s Game 5 starter, Shane Bieber, like so many others cosplaying as a reliever, and got a slider that settled in the middle of the zone. He did not miss. One step out of the batter’s box, he yelled, “Go ball,” imploring it to breach the fence. The ball bounced from the bullpen into the stands. Los Angeles led, 5-4.
“I’m just hoping I got enough,” Smith said. “I knew I hit it pretty good. But we’ve hit a lot of balls hard here in this stadium that just haven’t got out. They just kind of came up a little short. So it was nice to finally get one.”
The Dodgers’ ninth championship beckoned, and Yamamoto emerged from the dugout to put the ultimate stamp on it. Pitching is about milliseconds and millimeters. Any minuscule change in timing, movement, grip and dozens of other factors runs the risk of frying a pitcher’s wiring. No such concern existed with Yamamoto, even in circumstances unfathomable to other pitchers. He is unbothered. He made himself for this moment.
“He put on his cape,” Hernández said, “and he took us to the promised land.”
A Guerrero leadoff double in the 11th, followed by a Kiner-Falefa sacrifice to get him to third with one out? It happens. A Barger walk on four splitters out of the zone? No worries. Because after getting Kirk down 0-2 on a cutter and curveball, Yamamoto unleashed a splitter — the pitch brought back into vogue by Japanese pitchers — and shattered Kirk’s bat. The ball trickled toward Betts, who scurried over to second, stepped on the bag with his left foot and flipped the ball to Freddie Freeman for the first World Series-ending double play since 1947.
“It’s about betting on players and people,” Roberts said. “There’s this narrative where people think that we’re scripting s— based on numbers, and it couldn’t be further from that. There’s a separation between the regular season, where the numbers make sense, the long view, but then when you’re trying to win 13 games, it’s about players and people and who you’re going to bet on. It’s not all about the matchups.
“I bet on Yama because I just felt there’s just something inside of his soul that I completely believed in. And even Miggy Ro in a different context, where everything says you hit for him, I just believed that he was going to do something special.”
ON THE DAY of Game 7, the Instagram page for Yada Sensei’s clinic posted three emojis of people bowing with sheepish looks on their faces. Above them was a message in Japanese thanking its patients for their patronage and informing them Yada will soon return to Osaka and that he will start taking appointments Nov. 5.
“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by our prolonged business trip,” the post said.
Describing the greatest World Series as a “prolonged business trip” encapsulates how Yada sees himself, an ethos he has passed along to Yamamoto. What the Dodgers so adore about Yamamoto is just how normal he is. For all of the novelties of his training, he is a regular dude. He loves his dog. He cracks jokes.
“He’s genuine. He’s responsible. He’s very straightforward,” Yada said. “He doesn’t lose sight of his dreams.”
Dreams are important to Yada, windows into the ethereal place where he believes athletes must go to mine the materials within. In the end, all of the Dodgers unearthed that in a season that started March 18 in Japan and ended just after midnight Nov. 2 in Canada. They won 93 games, cruised through the National League bracket and ran into a Blue Jays unit certain destiny was riding shotgun until its engine faltered. Los Angeles became the first team to win two straight World Series since the New York Yankees triumphed three straight years from 1998-2000. The Dodgers sent Clayton Kershaw, their Hall of Fame ace, into retirement with his third ring and prevented Max Scherzer, Kershaw’s nearest modern analog and Toronto’s Game 7 starter, from winning his third. Los Angeles did it with talent, and with persistence, and with $500 million-plus in salaries and taxes, every dollar spent worth it, particularly the $16 million this year that went to Yamamoto.
“For him to do three ups and hold his stuff the way he did — it was every bit as good as it was in Game 6 — is literally the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen on a Major League Baseball field,” Friedman said.
At the Dodgers’ party following the win, highlights from the night played on a screen and the high of the night never lost its sheen. Yamamoto was feted as a legend, a hero, but all that mattered, Yada said, is “he just really, really wanted to be a champion with his teammates.”
He is, for the second time, still on that path to growth, embracing tariki hongan from the 25 men surrounding him and manifesting jiriki hongan with his own will, desire, fortitude. It’s true, yes, that Yada built Yoshinobu Yamamoto into what he is today. But outrageous things take more than a sensei or a code. They take a man willing to do things others wouldn’t dare dream of.
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ESPN staff
College football’s early signing period started Wednesday and runs until Friday. Class of 2026 high school recruits who signed have locked into the college of their choice for at least the next year.
The drama started early when Vanderbilt flipped five-star QB Jared Curtis from Georgia on Tuesday night. Defensive end Jordan Carter (No. 57 overall) was the highest-ranked uncommitted recruit. He chose Tennessee over Auburn and Georgia Tech on Wednesday. Virginia Tech was a big mover of the day, adding 11 players who were formerly in James Franklin’s class at Penn State. USC added to its top-ranked class by flipping Kayden Dixon-Wyatt from Ohio State. Texas has the most five-star signings of any team, headlined by QB Dia Bell.
If a prospect doesn’t sign a national letter of intent by Friday, the next national signing day for this cycle begins Feb. 4.
We tracked all the news, analysis and more throughout Wednesday.
More: Class rankings: Top 75 | How the five-stars fit
College football’s early signing period opened Wednesday with much of the 2026 recruiting class committed. That added some extra drama for those teams chasing last-minute additions and flips.
Coaching changes weighed heavily on the end of this cycle with Virginia Tech adding eight commitments since James Franklin’s hiring. Auburn and Arkansas each saw movement in their classes following their coach hirings Sunday.
Here’s a look at the winners, the programs that missed out Wednesday and the questions that still loom over the 2026 cycle after more than 12 months of recruiting played out in the span of 12 hours:
Jump to: Texas’ haul | Carousel impact
CFP boost | Who has overachieved | Impact QBs
Texas’ five-star haul is impressive
A few teams landed multiple five-star prospects, but none has more than the Longhorns. The class fills needs but also has extremely talented players at impact positions.
On defense, linebacker Tyler Atkinson (No. 17 overall) has a combination of skills and production that can’t be ignored. He recorded 550 tackles in his prep career and had three double-digit sack seasons. He’s a versatile and explosive defender whether he’s rushing off the edge or in coverage. He is joined by defensive end Richard Wesley, No. 8 overall. After the Longhorns leaned some on the transfer portal this past offseason to retool their defensive line, Wesley will be a key player who projects to be versatile within their front, with the strength and heavy hands to set the edge and the ability to slide inside and expose mismatches with his quickness.
Offensively, QB Dia Bell, the sixth overall prospect, might be the most well-rounded, having been a multiyear starter and consistently playing at a high level of competition. While he is not a true dual threat, he can create second chances and be effective when asked to run. As a passer, his basketball background has helped develop his pocket movement and he has good touch on his deep ball. In running back Derrek Cooper, Texas has its future replacement for Quintrevion Wisner. Cooper’s initial impact could be limited but he brings similar attributes, with the ability to be a 1,000-yard rushing threat and rank among UT’s most productive pass catchers. Again, Texas has set itself up to replace a productive player with a prospect with arguably even greater impact ability. — Craig Haubert
Coaching changes hurt Auburn, Penn State and Oklahoma State
Traditionally, in-season firings tend to be the first domino to a class implosion. Such moves didn’t burn Florida and LSU on the 2026 recruiting trail. But amid a historic coaching carousel, the recruiting classes at Auburn, Penn State and Oklahoma State were among those that felt the fullest force of their school’s respective coaching changes in recent months.
Auburn’s latest class held firm in the weeks after the Tigers fired Hugh Freeze on Nov. 2. In fact, four of the program’s five decommitments since then occurred only after Auburn hired Alex Golesh from South Florida on Sunday. But the departures themselves were significant. Four-star safety Bralan Womack (No. 39 overall), the Tigers’ top-ranked 2026 commit, and quarterback Peyton Falzone (No. 225) each pulled their pledges on Monday. And while signatures from four-star wide receiver Jase Mathews (No. 258 overall) and a trio of ESPN 300 linebackers still give Auburn a foundation of 2026 talent, the Tigers’ incoming class lacks starpower.
Defensive tackle Danny Beale (No. 108 overall) and running back Kaydin Jones (No. 25 RB) marked Oklahoma State’s star additions in a surprisingly strong start to the 2026 cycle. Both left the Cowboys’ class between Mike Gundy’s September departure and the arrival of North Texas coach Eric Morris on Nov. 25. Following another series of decommittments over the past week-and-a-half, Morris is set to begin his rebuild in Stillwater with a thin class of early signees.
The fall recruiting misfortunes of Auburn and Oklahoma State, however, look tame next to the developments that have unfolded around Penn State’s 2026 class since mid-October.
As of Wednesday morning, only two commits remained in a Nittany Lions class that ranked 17th nationally when the school fired coach James Franklin on Oct. 12. Among the high-profile departures from Penn State since then: offensive tackle Kevin Brown (No. 78), wide receiver Davion Brown (No. 109), running back Messiah Mickens (No. 141) and longtime quarterback pledge Troy Huhn (No. 198). To add insult to injury, 10 of the Nittany Lions’ 21 total decommitments ultimately landed with Franklin at Virginia Tech, all signing with a surging Hokies 2026 Wednesday while Penn State’s coaching job still sits vacant in early December. — Eli Lederman
Which teams improved their CFP chances?
35 commitments
ESPN 300 commits: 18, two five-stars
USC is getting close and just lost a game at Oregon that would have likely thrust it into the CFP in 2025. The class is loaded top to bottom, even including juco prospects. To take the next step, though, the Trojans must continue to beef up the trenches. They pulled four-star defensive tackle Jaimeon Winfield out of Texas, landed in-state defensive end Simote Katoanga and traveled to Utah to snag offensive lineman Esun Tafa. To further bolster the offensive line, the Trojans landed Keenyi Pepe out of IMG Academy. He has great size at 6-foot-7 and 320 pounds but is light on his feet as well as physical and can become a standout tackle. Five-star cornerback Elbert Hill headlines the skill-position players. Hill possesses elite speed, having been measured at over 22 mph in game play.
25 commitments
ESPN 300 commits: 12, one five-star
Michigan has quietly put together a very successful season, winning five games in a row prior to a loss to Ohio State despite multiple offensive injuries at running back and a true freshman QB in Bryce Underwood. This class features six players who rank in the top 10 at their respective position. Michigan bolstered its backfield by landing No. 2 running back Savion Hiter, a runner with a nice blend of size (6 feet, 200 pounds), power and speed who can also catch the ball out of the backfield. After losing two defensive linemen in the first round of the NFL draft, Michigan added several to this class, including four-stars Titan Davis, McHale Blade and Tariq Boney. Michigan has also received a commitment from five-star Carter Meadows, a rangy edge defender who can affect the QB. — Tom Luginbill
Which teams have overachieved?
18 commitments: one five-star, 17 three-stars
Coach Willie Fritz has made huge strides in his second season at Houston and recruiting has picked up as a result.
The class has been headlined for several months by five-star quarterback Keisean Henderson, the No. 1 dual-threat QB in the country. Henderson could become a program-defining prospect that thrusts the Cougars into Big 12 championship contenders for years to come. Henderson has also been a loyal commitment throughout the process despite obvious overtures by other bigger programs to flip him. He’s dynamic as a runner and a gamer as a passer.
UH’s class also features the sixth-ranked tight end in the country in Jaivion Martin. The 250-pounder is a well-rounded blocker and receiver who can play as an inline in the run game. He also competes in track and field. The Cougars have also nabbed a top-25 athlete in Paris Melvin, who could project at cornerback or wide receiver and is a dangerous return man who ran a 10.86 100m in the spring of 2025. One of the more underrated running back prospects in the class is John Hebert, a Ryan Switzer-type scatback/utility weapon. He ran a 4.54 40-yard laser timed in the spring and has posted a max speed of 21.3 mph.
This class is full of high-end three-star prospects, and perhaps no coach in the country has a better track record of developing prospects than Fritz.
21 commitments: six four-stars
SMU is now running with the big dogs not only on the field, but in recruiting circles as well. The Mustangs have added several offensive linemen, no bigger than Sam Utu, an ESPN 300 player with tackle athleticism and guard power. The Mustangs also picked up Evan Goodwin, a massive presence at 6-7 and 320 pounds, Evan Goodwin, a massive presence at 6-7 and 320 pounds, and in-state guard Drew Evers, a thickly built and strong blocker who can latch on and control defenders. Rhett Lashley knows the trenches are what’s going to elevate the program.
Capitalizing on the rich talent base in Texas, SMU has added several in-state prospects, including SC Next 300 back Christian Rhodes. Rhodes, an explosive runner who has been recorded hitting better than 21 mph max speed in game play, also brings a physical running style at 6-1, 200 pounds. High three-star Aljour Miles II, a lengthy receiver who has good quickness and body control, is another nice in-state addition. Another receiving target with big-play potential, Jakai Anderson, was pulled out of Louisiana. Not quite as big a target, he brings a good blend of speed and elusiveness and could also be productive in the return game.
On defense, defensive end Hudson Woods shows some savvy as a pass rusher, with active hands and good bend. Linebacker Kenneth Goodwin out of California is a versatile, physical defender who can rush the passer.
12 commitments: six ESPN 300 prospects, eight total four-stars
Despite the firing of coach Hugh Freeze and some late defectors, this class still has major talent upgrades committed, particularly on defense. The class is not large, but it is stacked with overall top-end talent. There are four players ranked within the top 11 players in the country at their respective position and two within the top three.
Adam Balogoun-Ali is the country’s No. 1 inside linebacker and also happens to have significant growth upside with his lengthy frame. He can play inside and on the outside as an edge rusher and excels in space due to his speed and agility. The Tigers also have a commitment from the No. 3 inside linebacker in the class, Shadarius Toodle. Toodle is just a step behind Balogoun-Ali in terms of overall speed and is a downhill gap plugger in the middle of the field.
New head coach Alex Golesh has a good foundation to head into the dead period with and attack the transfer portal in January for more additions. — Luginbill
These 2026 QBs could start early
Jake Fette, Arizona State Sun Devils: Assuming Sam Leavitt goes in the portal, Fette, the No. 4-ranked dual threat, brings a lot of great traits to the Sun Devils offense. He’s super athletic and mobile, with the field vision to keep his eyes downfield while on the move. Fette is very similar to Leavitt in stressing defenses with his arms and legs. Fette also has good touch and anticipation on short to midrange throws. Coach Kenny Dillingham will challenge defenses schematically with a lot of shifts, motions and backfield action that will maximize Fette’s dynamic skill set in and outside the pocket.
Oscar Rios, Arizona Wildcats: Rios is the Wildcats’ highest-rated pocket passer signee in the ESPN 300 era. How immediate the impact depends on whether Noah Fifita returns for the 2026 season. If Fifita chooses to return, Rios could redshirt as a true freshman and be the favorite to become the starter in 2027. Rios’ quick release and great arm strength should lead to big numbers under coordinator Seth Doege in Tucson. — Billy Tucker
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Mark Schlabach
OXFORD, Miss. — Last month, as some of the biggest college football brands pursued Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin, a staff member polled the team’s assistant coaches about where they wanted to be in the 2026 season.
The coaches discussed four options: Remain at Ole Miss, where they had built a legitimate College Football Playoff contender; leave for SEC rivals Florida or LSU; or take over Florida State, which according to people with knowledge of the search, was making a stealth move to poach Kiffin.
The entire defensive coaching staff, led by coordinator Pete Golding, preferred to stay at Ole Miss, which was on the verge of its first 11-win regular season and CFP appearance, two sources told ESPN.
All but one offensive assistant wanted to leave for either Florida or LSU, which historically had enjoyed more success than Ole Miss but had fired their coaches after their teams struggled this season.
That meeting was indicative of the divided loyalties and uncertainty that defined one of the most compelling coaching searches in college football history, which threatened to not only derail the Rebels’ historic season but also captivated fans on three SEC campuses and around the country.
On Sunday, after days of mounting tension and uncertainty, Kiffin finally agreed to become LSU’s coach, abandoning an Ole Miss team that is 11-1 and holds the No. 6 spot in the CFP selection committee’s latest rankings.
Even worse for many Ole Miss fans, Kiffin departed for a program they consider its fiercest rival in the SEC.
“You’re not leaving to coach the Giants or the Dolphins or the Buckeyes,” a source familiar with the situation told ESPN. “You’re talking about going to a place that we will play [each of the next four seasons].”
BY THE TIME the Rebels traveled to play rival Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl on Friday, a pall had settled over the Ole Miss program.
Florida and LSU had ramped up their courtships of Kiffin, who had transformed Ole Miss from a midtier SEC program to one of the best in the FBS. The Rebels had gone 54-19 under Kiffin, winning 10 or more games in four of the past five seasons. Only blue bloods Alabama and Georgia had more success in the league since Kiffin arrived.
Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin interviewed Kiffin in Oxford in early November — a bold move behind enemy lines to get an edge on the most coveted candidate in the coaching carousel, two Florida sources told ESPN. Gators fans, who had watched their team limp to losing records in four of the past five seasons, clearly favored Kiffin.
Years ago, Kiffin wanted Florida, but Stricklin hired Billy Napier, then the coach at Louisiana, in November 2021. Kiffin’s off-field behavior made Napier the safer option, despite the Rebels’ 10-3 campaign that season, in which they defeated nationally ranked Arkansas and Texas A&M.
The Gators went 22-23 in three-plus seasons under Napier, and he was fired Oct. 19 after they struggled to a 3-4 start.
It wasn’t the first time Kiffin had been rebuffed by the Gators. After Kiffin was fired as USC‘s coach five games into the 2013 season — the Trojans dismissed him in a private terminal at Los Angeles International Airport following an ugly 62-41 loss at Arizona State — then-Florida coach Will Muschamp sought to hire Kiffin as his offensive coordinator the next season. However, Muschamp was told by UF officials that the SEC office wouldn’t allow him to bring in Kiffin, according to two people familiar with the situation, and Alabama’s Nick Saban hired Kiffin a couple of weeks later.
Early on, Ole Miss officials believed Florida might be the biggest threat to lure Kiffin away because of his family’s connection to the Gators. His ex-wife, Layla, had moved to Oxford earlier this year to be closer to two of her children: Knox, a sophomore at Oxford High School, and Landry, a junior at Ole Miss. Layla Kiffin’s father, John Reaves, was a star quarterback for the Gators from 1969 to 1971 and was later an assistant under legendary coach Steve Spurrier.
However, the Florida opening became Kiffin’s second choice, sources close to him told ESPN, once LSU fired Brian Kelly on Oct. 26, a day after the Tigers lost to Texas A&M 49-25 at home. While Kiffin was reportedly turned off by Stricklin’s involvement in the Florida program, he didn’t seem overly concerned about the political environment at LSU.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry was highly critical of athletic director Scott Woodward for leaving LSU on the hook for a $54 million buyout when Kelly was fired. Woodward resigned under pressure Oct. 30 and was replaced by longtime LSU administrator Verge Ausberry.
During his introductory news conference Monday, Kiffin revealed he had a “unique, great call with Governor Landry” during LSU’s recruitment of him.
“I could feel his passion and energy for the state of Louisiana and for LSU football,” Kiffin said.
LSU became more attractive to Kiffin once Ausberry was promoted, sources told ESPN. Saban, who guided the Tigers to the 2003 national championship and helped Kiffin resurrect his career when he brought him on as Alabama’s offensive coordinator from 2014 to 2016, was complementary of Ausberry.
LSU brass interviewed Kiffin sometime in mid-November. On Monday, Ausberry said the initial interview with Kiffin lasted less than 90 minutes. When Ausberry called other LSU officials to pick him up, they were like, “Y’all finish, already?”
“It wasn’t a three- or four-hour meeting,” Ausberry said. “[Former LSU baseball coach and athletic director] Skip Bertman taught me that. Nick Saban taught me that you don’t ask great coaches, ‘What you gonna do on third-and-8? Tell me about your offensive game plan, tell me about your defense, tell me about who you’re gonna hire.’
“Here, it’s like, ‘What do you need to be successful? We want you to be our coach here. What do you expect from me as athletic director? What do you expect from LSU, and do you want to be at LSU?’ And that was pretty much the conversation.”
Ausberry recalled working under Bertman when the Tigers hired Oklahoma State‘s Les Miles before the 2005 football season. Bertman’s teams won five College World Series titles and seven SEC championships during his 18 seasons as coach from 1984 to 2001.
“Hiring the football coach at LSU is the biggest thing in the state of Louisiana,” Ausberry told Bertman. “It’s the biggest job. I said, ‘If you hire the wrong one, Coach Bertman, all your national championships, all your great baseball programs, that’s going to be your legacy.’
“So, I thought that this would be my legacy at LSU, and that I have to get the right person to be the head coach of LSU.”
At the same time, Florida State athletic director Michael Alford also was wooing Kiffin behind the scenes, sources familiar with the search told ESPN. Kiffin and Alford had worked together at USC — Alford as the Trojans’ associate AD from 2000 to 2003 and Kiffin as Pete Carroll’s tight ends/wide receivers coach from 2001 to 2003. But Florida State hadn’t fired embattled coach Mike Norvell, whose program had slipped dramatically after going 13-1 and winning an ACC title in 2023. The Seminoles cratered last season, going 2-10, followed by a 5-7 mark this year.
The Seminoles would have owed Norvell about $54 million if they fired him without cause, plus another $18 million to pay off his assistants.
Hiring Kiffin, the hottest coach on the market, might have allowed Alford to justify spending $72 million to dismiss Norvell and his staff. The Seminoles’ recruitment of Kiffin continued into the middle of November, according to the sources. But after it became clear Kiffin wasn’t coming, FSU announced Nov. 23 that Norvell would return for a seventh season.
Ausberry said he worked tirelessly to keep LSU’s courtship of Kiffin under wraps, even though there was plenty of speculation that the Tigers wanted him.
On Nov. 17, fans using online flight trackers discovered that LSU had flown a jet to Oxford and back. Layla Kiffin and other family members visited Baton Rouge that day. She visited Gainesville, Florida, the day before with her son and Lane’s brother Chris’ son.
“They had to really see Baton Rouge,” Ausberry said. “That was one of the big things, because her father was an All-American at the University of Florida, and a coach [and] great NFL player, and those are things that we were a little afraid of. That’s that pull of Gainesville, and then she came to Baton Rouge.”
Kiffin’s family visits to rival SEC campuses — and the fact that they became so public — were like a slap in the face to many Ole Miss fans, who believed their coach was trolling them.
Kiffin was upset about what Rebels fans were saying about him, but an Ole Miss source described the development as a “self-inflicted wound.”
“What do you expect when your family flies to visit two of our competitors?” the Ole Miss source said.
A WEEK BEFORE the Egg Bowl, Kiffin met with Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter and chancellor Glenn Boyce, as pressure was reaching a tipping point between the sides. Carter and Boyce wanted Kiffin to make a decision and sign a lengthy contract extension that would have made him one of the highest-paid coaches in the sport.
Ole Miss officials had assured Kiffin it could match anything Florida and LSU were offering in terms of revenue sharing and NIL, at least under current NCAA rules.
Kiffin wasn’t ready to commit, however, and informed Boyce and Carter that he hadn’t made up his mind. Kiffin didn’t think it was fair that he had to decide at that point because Ole Miss hadn’t even finished the regular season, sources close to the coach told ESPN.
“This is what’s wrong with the whole system,” a source close to Kiffin told ESPN. “Because this is another example of how nobody’s been in charge of anything in college football. Because if it was the NFL, you couldn’t talk to anybody until after the playoffs. It’s a horrible system.”
Boyce and Carter explored potential ways to keep him from coaching in the Egg Bowl — and they made it clear that he wouldn’t coach in the CFP if he accepted a job at Florida or LSU, Ole Miss sources told ESPN.
Cooler heads prevailed, and the sides agreed that the Rebels needed to focus on beating Mississippi State and potentially securing a CFP first-round home game, which would be lucrative for both Ole Miss and Oxford.
“[Kiffin] was looking for a reason to leave,” an Ole Miss source told ESPN. “When Keith kind of put him on the clock, I think that kind of changed the narrative, changed the landscape a little bit.”
Carter released a statement Nov. 21 saying he’d had “many pointed and positive conversations” with Kiffin regarding his future at Ole Miss and that he expected a decision from his coach the day after the Egg Bowl.
By that point, many Ole Miss fans were fed up with the drama. One prominent booster told ESPN this week he’d already informed the athletic department that if Kiffin returned, he wouldn’t continue contributing money to the program.
“The fan base went from wanting to build a statue for him to wanting to run him out of town,” the booster said.
WHEN THE EGG BOWL finally arrived Friday, there was an overwhelming sense that Kiffin was coaching his last game at Ole Miss. There was plenty of drama off the field, as well.
Before kickoff in Starkville, Kiffin told ESPN that Mississippi State students broke into the Rebels locker room at Davis Wade Stadium, stealing the jerseys of quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and other players.
Mississippi State officials had promised to put security guards outside the locker room but failed to do so, and the thieves broke in again, Kiffin said. The Rebels had captured the thefts on hidden cameras and turned the video over to police.
The Rebels ran away from the Bulldogs in the second half of a 38-19 victory. As Kiffin celebrated with players for the last time, Mississippi State officials blared the hit song from The Clash, “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” over the stadium speakers.
As Kiffin walked off the field, he embraced Boyce. Then he turned his attention to Ben Garrett, a reporter for On3. Kiffin confronted Garrett for using lyrics from a rap song to describe his unwillingness to commit to Ole Miss during a podcast: “Can’t turn a h- into a housewife. H-s don’t act right.”
Their argument continued in Kiffin’s postgame news conference, with Kiffin calling Garrett’s actions “bush league.”
“I don’t even know your name,” Kiffin told the reporter, a tactic he sometimes uses with staff members when he’s upset.
Garrett told ESPN that Kiffin called him the next day to apologize — and called him by his name. A few hours later, Kiffin texted Garrett a meme of Kiffin wearing a yellow-and-purple hat with the word “h-” on it.
AS COLLEGE FOOTBALL fans turned their attention to Saturday’s rivalry games, the Ole Miss campus was mostly quiet. Students were away for the Thanksgiving break, and Kiffin spent the morning with his family at a hot yoga class.
At one point, he assembled his coaching staff at the Manning Center to review film of Georgia, in case Alabama lost to Auburn in the Iron Bowl, which would have put the Rebels in the SEC championship game.
Around 6 p.m. ET, Kiffin met with Carter at the chancellor’s home on campus. During the nearly two-hour meeting, Kiffin broke the news that he was leaving for LSU. However, Kiffin continued to lobby his AD to allow him to coach the Rebels in the CFP.
“[Kiffin] had an opportunity to coach in the playoff, and that would have been to stay at Ole Miss, and he chose not to do that,” Carter told ESPN. “That’s his choice, and I respect that choice. But then we had to make a choice, and talking with the team and spending time with them, I think they know they need coaches to make a playoff run.
“I think they were very concerned about their position coaches and those types of things. But I think they understood when someone takes a job at another place — and not only another place but one of our rivals and a team that will be playing in our stadium next year — I think that that’s something that nobody feels comfortable with.”
Carter told ESPN that he’d been weighing whether to allow Kiffin to coach in the SEC championship game because of the short turnaround. When it became apparent that Boyce and Carter weren’t going to budge on their position about the CFP, according to Ole Miss sources, Kiffin threatened to take his entire offensive coaching staff with him to LSU.
It was his last leverage chip in a tense standoff to coach in the postseason. Ole Miss staff members confirmed to ESPN that Kiffin told his assistants that if they didn’t go to LSU with him on Sunday, they wouldn’t have a job with him in the future.
By the time LSU administrators landed in Baton Rouge following the Tigers’ 17-13 loss at Oklahoma on Saturday, Kiffin’s agent, Jimmy Sexton, had been frantically trying to reach Ausberry. When the men finally connected, Sexton delivered the news that Kiffin was ready to take the LSU job.
The outcome of the Iron Bowl might have determined whether the Tigers would have to wait another week to introduce their new coach. Auburn rallied to tie the score late in the fourth quarter, but Alabama went ahead 27-20 with 3:50 to play.
After Alabama recovered a fumble at its 20-yard line with 33 seconds left, Kiffin’s tenure at Ole Miss was over.
“It’s a tough situation,” Ausberry said. “He loved that place. We were thinking about that timeline. Also, I got kind of nervous the night when Auburn tied Alabama in that game. Now, it might push us back a week, but we were comfortable.”
In fact, Ausberry said LSU didn’t have a problem with Kiffin coaching the Rebels in the CFP, as long as he signed his contract with the Tigers. Kiffin said in a statement announcing his departure that Carter wouldn’t allow him to coach, and he added that he was willing to put guardrails in place to protect Ole Miss but didn’t specify what they would be.
“It’s great,” Ausberry said. “It’s great publicity for our institution. You have a coach, coaching out there, coaching [in the] playoff, playing for a national championship, and being the next coach of LSU, so we had no problems with that.”
0:54
Lane Kiffin respects Ole Miss’ decision to not have him coach in CFP
New LSU coach Lane Kiffin reflects on the process that led to Ole Miss not allowing him to coach the Rebels in the College Football Playoff.
That was exactly the situation Ole Miss officials wanted to avoid — its historic CFP run becoming a monthlong infomercial for LSU’s next coach. They also didn’t want Kiffin coaching their players once he left. The transfer portal opens Jan. 2, and it would have given Kiffin more time to potentially recruit the Rebels’ best players.
“The players were concerned about commitment and those types of things,” Carter said. “[With] this playoff run, we plan on this being a four-, five-, six-week thing. There’s just no way that that’s possible. I know that the scheduling and the timing and all that stuff is a part of the equation. But I’m just not sure there was any plan that was going to work that would allow the head coach of a rival school to be in your building and coaching your guys. We had to stand up for our program and what we thought was best.”
Late Saturday night, ESPN reported that Kiffin was signing a seven-year contract with LSU. A team meeting was scheduled for 10 a.m. ET Sunday, when Kiffin would address the Rebels for the final time.
ON SUNDAY, the meeting was pushed back to 2 p.m. ET, as Ole Miss officials scrambled to figure out which assistants were leaving and staying. The Rebels also were working to name an interim coach. Pete Golding would end up being hired as Kiffin’s permanent replacement before the team meeting.
“I got back to the office and said, ‘You know what? We’ve got a great solution to all this. Somebody that’s right here under our nose, that’s going to be the next great coach. He can help us hold this staff together,'” Carter said.
Kiffin encouraged Carter to meet with the team’s leadership council, according to Ole Miss sources, telling him that he wasn’t going to like what he would hear. But instead of telling Carter the team wanted Kiffin to coach in the CFP, the players said they were more worried about their position coaches staying and had grown tired of the drama surrounding Kiffin.
After the 30-minute meeting with Carter, the leadership council also met with Kiffin, Ole Miss sources told ESPN.
In response to the statement Kiffin issued announcing his decision, in which he claimed the players wanted him “to keep coaching them,” Rebels starting center Brycen Sanders, a member of the leadership council, posted on X on Tuesday: “I think everyone that was in that room would disagree.”
Linebacker Suntarine Perkins, another member of the council, added on X: “That was not the message you said in the meeting room. Everybody that was in there can vouch on this.”
Meanwhile, Layla Kiffin drove a white Mercedes into the parking lot behind the building about an hour before the scheduled team meeting. Golding paced on a sidewalk, talking on a cellphone for more than 15 minutes.
Lane Kiffin was escorted out of the Manning Center 10 minutes before Ole Miss players met with Carter, Boyce and Golding.
There were a few dozen fans and reporters gathered outside the building. Officers in three police cruisers were parked nearby, in case things got out of hand, as they did when Kiffin left Tennessee after only one season in January 2010. UT students burned couches and nearly rioted the night of his stunning departure.
As Kiffin and his son drove out of the parking lot around 1:45 p.m. ET, an Ole Miss student approached his black SUV and made an obscene gesture. It wasn’t the last one Kiffin would see that day.
A few minutes later, Ole Miss players started to file out of the Manning Center. One of them yelled, “It’s the Pete Golding era!”
By then, two planes owned by an LSU booster had been dispatched to pick up Kiffin, his family and the staff members who were joining him in Baton Rouge. The original rendezvous point was Tupelo, Mississippi, which is more than 50 miles from the Ole Miss campus.
On the way to Mississippi, someone told Ausberry that the flight was being diverted to Oxford’s airport.
“We’re going where? Oxford?” Ausberry said. “They’ll be shooting missiles at us.”
A few hundred Ole Miss fans lined the fences of the runway of University-Oxford Airport when the two planes landed. They booed the pilots, who could only laugh and wave. When someone asked Ausberry if he needed to use the restroom in the airport terminal, he said, “That’s OK, I’ll hold it.”
One by one, the Ole Miss assistants who were joining Kiffin arrived at the airport and were escorted to the planes in a black SUV. The fans booed their disapproval at offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., passing game coordinator/receivers coach George McDonald and co-offensive coordinator/tight ends coach Joe Cox, among others. (LSU announced Tuesday that Weis will return to Ole Miss for the CFP.)
Layla Kiffin was booed loudly when she drove her Mercedes onto the runway.
“He is what we thought he was,” said Ole Miss graduate Taylor Cauthen, who stood along the fence. “He was gonna win, and we knew how he was gonna leave. I mean, it’s not surprising to anybody with any sense. He was gonna win games, and he was gonna leave, and it was gonna be bad.”
Cauthen, who moved back to Oxford in July, said Kiffin hijacked the Rebels’ historic season and turned it into a soap opera about him.
“He’s taken it from us,” Cauthen said. “He made it all about him. I think he wakes up every morning, looks at himself in the mirror, and tells himself he loves him. I think that’s who he cares about most. I think he cares about himself more than anything on this earth, including his family.”
Joe Ignatius, an Ole Miss baseball player from 1992 to 1996, watched in disbelief as Kiffin and his assistants left Oxford like diplomats fleeing a foreign country.
“I feel naive thinking it wouldn’t happen to us,” Ignatius said. “It just didn’t have to go this way. It could have been six great years going your way, thanks for what you did. But leopards don’t change their spots. And I got fooled, so not what I expected.”
Ignatius said he felt the worst for his son, Bodacious, an eight-grader, who grew to love the Ole Miss football team.
Kiffin, along with his son, was the last person to arrive at the airport. By then, police were turning away fans because the parking lots were full. Kiffin used an auxiliary entrance, which had fire trucks and firefighters blocking the road to keep fans away. He was escorted down the runway by a state trooper and another emergency vehicle.
Once Kiffin pulled his SUV next to the plane, the Ole Miss fans gave him a full-throated sendoff. He was embraced by Ausberry, who was wearing a purple shirt, and climbed the jet’s stairs. There was no farewell wave to the fans.
“He got on that plane and was like, ‘Let’s go. I’m ready,'” Ausberry said.
Only a few hours later, defensive tackle Lamar Brown of Baton Rouge, an LSU commit and the No. 1 player in the 2026 class according to ESPN’s recruiting rankings, posted a photo with Kiffin on X with the caption, “Welcome home.”
During a news conference at LSU on Monday, Kiffin said he wasn’t surprised by the reaction of Ole Miss fans when he left.
“They ain’t going to the airport and driving from all over, OK, to say those things and yell those things and try to run you off the road if you were doing bad,” Kiffin said. “Time heals a lot of things, and having gone through this in this conference before, I sure hope that happens.”
Kiffin won’t have to wait long to find out. The Tigers are scheduled to open SEC play at Ole Miss next season.
On Monday at the Po-Boy Express in Baton Rouge, LSU fan Remi Brignac, his son Beau and their friend Jay Olinde were discussing the program’s future with Kiffin.
“We’re optimistic for change,” Remi said. “Finally got an offensive mind.”
Olinde, meanwhile, isn’t expecting a long-term marriage.
“I believe that he will bring the program back to where we expect it to be in Baton Rouge,” Olinde said. “But I also believe that as soon as he gets that done, he’ll leave for the NFL, coaching the Dallas Cowboys.”
ESPN’s Dave Wilson contributed to this report
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