Landry Kiffin’s Ability To Draw Attention Comes From Lane Kiffin’s Genes: ESPN’s Pete Thamel

Landry Kiffin has really stirred the pot well enough just as Week 5’s greatest rivalry knocks on the door. Landry set the internet buzzing in a big way when she revealed she’s dating LSU linebacker Whit Weeks. And that too just days before Ole Miss and LSU faced off in a top-15 SEC matchup. Talk about sensation, and Landry is the name that pops out. She is an Ole Miss student and a Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority member, so she is pretty habituated to the limelight. But it doesn’t really come down to someone naturally.

The Kiffins have a knack for drawing too much attention to their part. And fit all comes down from father dearest, Lane Kiffin. Rece Davis and Pete Thamel quickly pointed out how much buzz this family creates beyond the field. “There is clearly a linear genetic line from Lane Kiffin to Landry Kiffin on the ability to draw attention,” Pete Thamel said on the ESPN College Football podcast. “That is why college football is great. It is so utterly preposterous.”

Landry’s dating announcement was not in CFB’s week 5 to-know list; it came really abruptly. Landry was just hanging with her sorority sisters, and the next, she dropped a post with Weeks, captioned simply “happy :)”. And all of this cheeky behavior comes from her father. Lane Kiffin is arguably one of the most compelling figures in college football, and a quirky one, too. His story reads like a roller coaster full of sharp highs and dramatic lows. At 29, he became offensive coordinator at USC, but by 33, he was fired as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders after a rocky stint. Plus, it’s not really about his hopping nature; he had his fair share of controversies, too.

In the predawn hours of September 29, 2013, USC officials informed Kiffin of his termination shortly after a road game. They pulled the unemployed coach off the team bus at a small terminal near LAX, creating a viral moment of sports lore. The firing came amidst USC struggling with NCAA sanctions and a shrinking roster. But it felt like the final curtain on a turbulent tenure.

Then last year, Kiffin used his X account to get back at the NCAA Committee for how they decided the final 12 teams for the playoffs. His Ole Miss was snubbed for an ACC team, and Lane Kiffin went on a spree of sorts to question the decision. It started with a simple query and moved into the Rebels’ head coach retweeting random accounts that made a strength of schedule for SEC teams. It didn’t matter to Lane that the rest of college football didn’t feel the same way.

In an interview this year, Lane Kiffin laughed at the money Miami paid to get Carson Beck with a simple, “They didn’t see him play us last year?” So getting the media attention, good or bad, is not a new thing in the Kiffin household. And that’s Thamel puts it this way, “Thank you, Kiffins, for all your content. They should spell Kiffin with a C for content because that is unbelievable.”

And when it comes to content, Lane is a king. His social media presence is massive, especially on X, where he’s tweeted over 9,000 times since 2010.

Lane Kiffin defending future son-in-law?

Did we really think that a person like Lane Kiffin would just stand back on his daughter’s relationship buzz? Absolutely not. The internet went wild as Landry announced the news. So wild that it took an unfair turn. The Rebels fans started making a mockery that LSU’s defense was playing the best mind game of the year, with the romance acting as a kind of psychological warfare ahead of the highly anticipated rivalry.

Naturally, Lane Kiffin had to step in and put the chatter to rest. Breaking his silence in a calm, measured tone on X, Lane said, “Whit’s an awesome kid and comes from a great family. Glad those two are happy together, and, you know, it really has nothing to do with the game itself.” Talk about a supportive dad battling it out with his daughter’s boyfriend this weekend. That is how Kiffin shut down rumors that the relationship would become a distracting factor or give LSU any sort of edge.

His three-word response to the mind games talk? “Take the over.” And confidence isn’t misplaced. Ole Miss had been tearing defenses apart all season, smashing Tulane 45-10 just the week before, and their quarterback, Trinidad Chambliss, was playing lights out. On the other hand, Weeks is racking up standout stats, including 61 solo tackles last year, and continuing his impact with 11 more stops early in the season.

So this one’s pure love, and Kiffin understands that.

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