LSU’s Lane Kiffin Gets Strong Hot Seat Message After Kentucky Loss

The Lane Kiffin era at LSU is only six games old. One national writer believes the conversation around his future has already changed.

The Tigers fell 35-34 in overtime at Kentucky on Saturday, dropping to 4-2 after entering the season with championship expectations. That was enough for Bleacher Report’s Adam Kramer to say the hot-seat conversation around Kiffin has officially started.

LSU’s Lane Kiffin Gets Strong Hot Seat Message

Kramer made that distinction clear while examining the fallout from LSU’s second loss of the season.

“Lane Kiffin isn’t getting fired this year. We shouldn’t even entertain that discussion. LSU has tied itself to the coach in a robust way, especially financially, and he’ll be given time to turn things around. As he should,” Kramer wrote.

But Kentucky changed the tone around Kiffin’s first season.

“But losing to Kentucky is the kind of loss that will make LSU boosters uneasy, even if the Wildcats seem much improved,” Kramer wrote. “And entering Week 7 with two losses is less than ideal, especially with a challenging stretch of games on deck.”

LSU had chances to escape Lexington.

The Tigers led 27-24 late in the fourth quarter before Kentucky tied the game with 12 seconds remaining. LSU scored first in overtime, but the Wildcats answered with a touchdown and then won it on Kenny Minchey’s two-point conversion run.

Quarterback Sam Leavitt finished 25-of-34 for 275 yards with one touchdown and one interception, but his fourth-quarter fumble gave Kentucky a short field with LSU trying to close out the game.

The loss followed LSU’s 32-24 defeat at Ole Miss on Sept. 19, leaving Kiffin with two SEC losses before the middle of October.

Lane Kiffin Has Little Margin for Error Left at LSU

The schedule is what makes Kramer’s warning more significant.

LSU hosts Mississippi State on Oct. 17 before traveling to Auburn. After an open week, the Tigers host Alabama and Texas in consecutive games, then travel to Tennessee.

“Here’s the reality regarding the whole ‘hot seat’ conversation. It doesn’t start and suddenly just end in most instances. It’s a bad loss here, a bad loss there and an accumulation of mishaps,” Kramer wrote.

“This loss won’t decide his tenure in Baton Rouge, but it’s a mulligan he no longer has. And with more pressure on him than any coach in college football, the pressure will only continue to mount.”

Kiffin arrived at LSU with enormous expectations after six seasons at Ole Miss. The Tigers hired him to restore a program that had fallen short of the College Football Playoff in each of the previous three seasons.

There have already been flashes. LSU beat then-No. 23 Texas A&M 35-6 and followed with a 63-14 win over McNeese.

Kentucky erased much of that momentum.

The Tigers are still 4-2, and Kramer’s point was not that Kiffin’s job is immediately in danger. His argument was that losses like Saturday’s are how that pressure starts building, especially at a program where expectations rarely leave much room for patience.

With Alabama, Texas and Tennessee still waiting in November, LSU may not have many easy opportunities to change that conversation.

Kramer believes the conversation has already begun.

This article was originally published on HEAVY

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