The wait is over. But is anyone really surprised? It ended as it always has. Surely Ole Miss had their eyes open a week short of six years ago. I hope LSU does. Well, actually I don't, but they should.
You could have been a legend. You could have never bought a drink in a bar for the rest of your life. Streets would have been named for you. There would have been talk of renaming the field, maybe the stadium, certainly some other building in the athletic department. You've already done things the program had never accomplished. And there's big football left to be played, not just some No-Name.com Bowl. Instead it's just another burned bridge, another set of ashes not unique enough to warrant the effort. It's another set of kids, facing the biggest game of their lives, for some the biggest game they'll even play in, most won't go pro. Now, maybe right now, as I write this, they're staring at their cleats, thinking "we weren't enough." Someday soon, an insurance agent will be sitting in his office and his eyes will fall on a photo of the kid he used to be. He'll remember a magical season, then he'll remember... people can't be trusted. And as it looks right now, he'll remember you weren't even there, already on a plane. Couldn't even tell him and his teammates yourself. For that, you're not a hoe, you're a coward. That's harder to reform.
It wasn't money. Ole Miss isn't Tennessee or Alabama, they don't print their own money, but no SEC team has trouble coming up with cash. For a few moments, I entertained the notion that the chaos machine had found peace. He'd found a place to belong. People can change.
But they usually don't. When someone shows you who they are, believe them. On that score, Kiffin couldn't have been more transparent, or consistent.
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