A new wrinkle in Lane Kiffin's highly documented departure from Mississippi to LSU has emerged — and it involved a government agency.
In an interview on the "Assorted Crackers" podcast, Walter Jones, the director of Ole Miss' NIL Grove Collective, shared that the FBI came to the Rebels' football facilities at the Manning Center to search for bugs ahead of the College Football Playoff
following Kiffin's departure."We actually had the FBI come through and walk the building for bugs and for everything," Jones said on the podcast. "We knew kind of what was in Baton Rouge, and we knew how they operated. I remember getting on my knees and looking
underneath the desk, like checking for, 'Is there some sort of bug in my office?'"
When someone questioned him in the moment of why he was searching under his desk, Jones responded with a subtle shot at Kiffin, stopping short of mentioning the former Ole Miss coach by name.
"Trust me, you don't know this guy (Kiffin) like I do," Jones said.
Kiffin, the first person in history to lead three different SEC football programs, coached the Rebels to a 55-19 overall record in six seasons in Oxford. He was on his way to leading Ole Miss to its first-ever College Football Playoff appearance last season before his departure following the final week of the regular season.
Speaking to media on Monday, Aug. 24, Kiffin's successor at Ole Miss, Pete Golding, said the program didn't formally call on the FBI for help during the transition — only that a player's connected father, who lives locally, checked the building.
"I do think we probably have a current player whose dad just so happens to work for the FBI that lives in town," Golding said on Monday, according to the Clarion Ledger, part of the USA TODAY Network. "From that standpoint."
In addition to Kiffin leaving for LSU, several of his assistants — including offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. — decided to join him in Baton Rouge. Weis, of course, continued to coach Ole Miss in the College Football Playoff — in addition to handling his new role at LSU — before rejoining Kiffin full-time in Louisiana.
LSU and Ole Miss are slated for a 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff on Saturday, Sept. 19 at Vaught Hemingway Stadium in Oxford.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: FBI checked Ole Miss facilities for bugs after Lane Kiffin move to LSU
