It's almost as if Lane Kiffin is the last one to address any stray, flying rumor about himself, which have been a lot lately. When, in actually, he should be the first to shut them down given his situation.
He did it again, taking all the time to call out a false claim, after weeks of letting one very believable report from his Ole Miss exit run wild.
It was a frenzy in Oxford last Sunday when Kiffin left for Oxford; one part of that frenzy was a report claiming Kiffin had threatened Ole Miss staffers to join him on his jet to Baton Rouge if they wished to have a spot on his staff. If not, they won't have a spot at all.
Lane Kiffin denies issuing ultimatum to Ole Miss staff
Ever since, it has been a prominent storyline in the Sip, and Kiffin decided to call it a bluff now, after almost 15 days.
"Someone pumped a narrative in that there was an ultimatum to coaches or something," Kiffin said per Newsweek.
"There was nothing. Every coach has their own decision to make, and I would never give them an ultimatum like that. Those are all their own individual decisions."
Kiffin's debunking came right after several Ole Miss staffers who joined him at LSU, including Charlie Weis Jr. and others, returned to the Grove to coach in the College Football Playoff.
Understandably, he had a reason to not address the coaching carousel rumors, but he had all reasons to shut down this rumor back when it first started circulating.
His timing is too little, too late, almost making it seem like damage control.