TAMPA, Florida — Lane Kiffin's son issued the challenge sometime in May.
You're on social media all the time. I bet you couldn't get off.
Kiffin, being Kiffin, couldn't let it stand. So he got off social media. He even deleted the apps from his phone.
The LSU coach has always been a lightning rod for controversy, sharing his opinions and poking fun at his coaching colleagues on social media, but that reached a boiling point when he left Ole Miss for LSU before the Rebels' playoff push in December. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey made it part of his introduction on Thursday at SEC media days in Tampa
"Lane has been off of social media since May 11," Sankey said. "My suggestion is someone should give Knox a hug for me."
The last nine months have provided one of the more dramatic chapters in the mythology of the most difficult-to-categorize coach in college football. What he does next at LSU may just be the defining moment for the man and coach, who has won 10-plus games in half of his 14 seasons as a head coach.
Kiffin is often reflective and publicly philosophical in the aftermath of the touchstone moments in his life -- from leaving Tennessee for LSU after a year, a firing at USC, his dramatic weight gain and weight loss, and his mentor-mentee relationship with Nick Saban, the greatest coach of all time. When Kiffin sits still, he thinks about the transfer portal, roster construction and the butterfly effect of wins that redirected his career as the only coach to lead three different SEC programs. As he flew into Tampa on Thursday, he thought about his dad, legendary defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, who spent 13 years here redefining defensive schemes for the NFL's Buccaneers and died two years ago. In some ways, Kiffin's decision to stay off Twitter has provided some clarity amid the most chaotic offseason of his life.
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"I think whenever I've removed something -- whether that was bad habits, whether that was food, whether that was alcohol, whether that was toxic relationships, now social media -- anything that I've removed throughout life, once you remove it, you start to notice how many people are dependent on it that you didn't really realize before," Kiffin said.
He has been telling his players the same thing. There's clarity in disconnection, especially for Kiffin, whose life is never quiet.
Kiffin's departure from Ole Miss, where he led the most successful three-year stretch in school history, naturally resurfaced this week in Tampa.
Kiffin took coordinators and players, and ripped away the goodwill of a fanbase that had, by virtually every measure, never had it better. Ole Miss went 11-1 in his final season, reached the College Football Playoff for the first time in school history, and sent Kiffin out on the highest note in the program's modern era.
So, why leave?
"Every place isn't for everybody," said Ole Miss' new coach, Pete Golding. "That's coach, players, that's your job, that's everything. That's OK."
Golding, promoted from defensive coordinator to head coach, has been asked about this everywhere. The Ole Miss caravan. Media days. Every stop, every room. He called it on stage: Tell me how you really feel about him.
"It's the ex. There's always going to be history," Golding said. "Do you have an ex? Are you married? If you do get married and you have an ex that your wife knows about, she doesn't ever end, she's never dead, she's always going to get brought up."
The new Ole Miss coach made his peace, he said. Genuinely. He didn't know Kiffin before Ole Miss, didn't follow him from Alabama. He came to Oxford to plant roots, raise three kids and continue the build. He won two playoff games as the interim coach.
"Our relationship really grew in those three and a half years and he did a lot for me and I was very, very appreciative how he treated me and my family. I learned a lot from him."
He texts Kiffin regularly. "There are certain things we'll talk about and certain things we don't talk about."
Kiffin, for his part, said almost the same thing. "We have a great relationship. Those were three amazing years together."
That's the public story, but the actual story is the one that played out in offices, portal windows and late-night conversations. Like any relationship, it's more complicated than that.
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Before safety TJ Dottery transferred to LSU, Golding called him into his office.
He told him he thought he'd be dumb to leave and what he stood to lose by going to Baton Rouge.
The message he delivered to a group at Oxford -- and later confirmed in a wide-ranging interview with ESPN -- was not subtle. Golding had them Google Kiffin's name. He asked them to look at what the internet had done to a man who three years earlier would have had a statue in Oxford. He believed that leaving Ole Miss for LSU would hurt the future of the players who opted to follow Kiffin there. Golding recounted the conversation he had with Ole Miss superstar quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and running back Kewan Lacy, who were targeted by Kiffin to follow him to LSU but opted to remain at Ole Miss.
"Football's gonna end," Golding told them, according to ESPN. "What are you going to use? You gotta use an alumni base to be able to get you a job. Where are you gonna bring your kids to? What jersey are they wearing? Y'all two created a legacy in one season that's gonna be hard for anybody to overtake, and for what's going on now, for Coach Kiffin to leave -- go Google Lane Kiffin. I had them both do it in my office. Google Lane Kiffin, the dude they'd have built a statue of here three days ago. Google his name right now. They wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire. They'll do the same thing to y'all if you leave. But if you come out and say I'm going to continue to build on the legacy I've created, what that's going to do for you and this fan base and the alumni for the rest of your life -- I don't give a shit where you go or what they pay you, you'll never amount to that much."
Dottery heard it. He left anyway.
"Yes, sir," Dottery said Wednesday when asked whether Golding delivered a version of that message to him personally. "Kind of some of the same general statements, for sure. And that's why I said previously -- I knew that would be some of the aftermath."
He understood where Golding was coming from. He didn't stay.
"My decision personally -- it wasn't personal, it was all business," Dottery said. "And I hope everyone could understand that."
The business of it all is what Kiffin keeps returning to.
He has talked openly about the butterfly effect -- the way that Ole Miss-LSU game last November, the win that ended his tenure in Oxford and opened the door in Baton Rouge, cascaded outward. Golding got a head coaching job. Players got NIL money in both places. Programs that were already good got resources they didn't have before.
"In a lot of ways, a lot of people won," Kiffin said. "A lot of coaches either stayed or came. They were able to keep Pete Golding as a head coach, so he became a head coach. Players got a lot of really big contracts in both places. Assistant coaches did in both places. Both are talked about a lot as premier programs heading into next year."
Golding pushed back on that framing just enough to be honest about it, even if the conclusion is the same.
"I'll be the first one to tell you I told him I would think he was dumb if he was to leave," Golding said. "I wanted him to stay. It was a selfish decision because I loved being the DC where I was at. He decided what was better for him and his family, and that's for him to decide. No ill will towards him at all. Wish him the best of luck. We play him like every other SEC team, and we are going to both show up and spot the ball and play."
Dottery cried some nights after making his decision.
Not because it was wrong, he says, but because it was costly.
"Of course, man, it was hard for me," he said. "I even cried some nights because of just my love for my teammates, coaches, and even the fans, man -- the people that brought me in when I first got there. They took me in like I was one of their own."
The connection to Ole Miss hasn't broken. He still talks to his former teammate and plays video games with them.
On Sept. 19, the Tigers come to Oxford. Dottery will walk back into that building on the other side.
"Of course, everybody has different emotions," he said. "Emotions for sure are going to be high. But it's just another opportunity to play football, man. That's all I love."
Safety TJ Dottery (6) was one of a number of Ole Miss players and assistants who followed Lane Kiffin to LSU. Getty Images Kiffin, off social media, says he's more present for it. On Thursday morning at 5 a.m., he exercised at Club Tampa. He noticed others grabbing their phones before they've even caught their breath, endlessly scrolling, unknowingly comparing their lives to those that seem so much better on social media. He gave it a name, a motto he stole from motivational speaker Kevin Elko, who spoke at his father's funeral: comparisons are the thief of joy. He's been preaching its absence. Knox challenged him to see it.
"I just wanted to show him I could do it," Kiffin said. "And it's been really interesting. I think as I look back over my life, my journey, a lot of great things have come when I've subtracted things out of my life, when I've eliminated them."
He's building something in Baton Rouge with a new quarterback (Arizona State's Sam Leavitt) and a new roster that includes four Ole Miss transfers. For whatever reason, Kiffin loves a fresh start, even if it cost him leaving an Ole Miss program that was on the cusp of playing for a national title.
"You follow my life. I've built my life out of pushing out of comfort," he said. "That may not be for everybody. That's fine. That's just how I am. This job has really pushed me out of comfort to take a new job, to be at LSU -- like everyone talks about, the pressure of LSU and what comes with that.
"And there are more things to be done as the head coach of LSU than anywhere I have been that are asked of me. I've really enjoyed that. It's been exciting to do that, and to rebuild within a program, a roster and to come in and come off of a 7-6 season and then the expectations that everybody in the media has that we're supposed to be this great team right away. That's an awesome challenge.
"You want to talk about getting uncomfortable. That does it. Expectations make you uncomfortable. They make you not be able to just go through the motions in any aspect of your program. So that's been awesome. I really just can't wait to get on the field with them."
The ones still in Oxford are watching. And in September, when the Tigers come to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, all of it becomes a football game again.
That part, at least, everyone agrees on.
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