'Hatred' all Lane Kiffin's way, he says LSU players can just go play vs Ole Miss
· Yahoo Sports
BATON ROUGE – The environment in and around Vaught-Hemingway Stadium Saturday is expected to be passionate, possibly spilling over into vitriol leading up to LSU football and Ole Miss taking the field against one another that evening.
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Lane Kiffin is making his first trip back to Oxford, Mississippi less than 10 months after deciding to leave to Rebels and take the then vacant LSU job weeks ahead of his former team opening up play in their first College Football Playoff appearance.
Throw in some comments Kiffin made about the alleged difficulties he experienced trying to recruit out-of-state players to come play football at Ole Miss, and the Rebel fanbase certainly has no love lost for Kiffin.
"I guess there's real safety issues and stuff, so there's people that have a plan for that," Kiffin said what the expected environment he, his coaching staff and LSU are walking into Saturday. "It is what it is."
On the field, No. 8 LSU (2-0) and No. 9 Ole Miss (2-0) are battling it out in both team's SEC opener Saturday night. It'll be the first time in 64 years that the Magnolia Bowl, what the rivalry game is now affectionately called, has been played as a top-10 showdown.
To Kiffin, he believes the pressure is on the Rebels not his team.
"I told the players today, you don't have anything to worry about as far as like attention on you all week. There's just going to be so much attention, hatred, everything on me, I said, 'You just get to go play,'" Kiffin said. "I said really the pressure's on them.
"We won seven games last year, they won 13. They return two Heisman candidates (in quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and running back Kewan Lacy). How often does that ever happen in the same backfield? The second longest winning streak in the country. You guys just get to go play and the pressure is not on you."
Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: 'Hatred' all Lane Kiffin's way, he says LSU players can just go play vs Ole Miss