What Is LSU Doing? Are They Becoming The Most Hated Program In America? 

Sound the alarm!  

The LSU Tigers have gone too far.  

For those who aren’t aware, the school’s football coach, Lane Kiffin, is now recruiting literal NFL players for his collegiate program. Two such pros—Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris—have left the NFL and are set to suit up for LSU in the coming weeks.  

Yes, you read that correctly. That’s not innovation, that’s lunacy.  

While there have been plenty of changes over the last few years in college football, some good and some less so, there is such a thing as a bridge too far. 

And Coach Kiffin is currently welding it together.  

Believe me. I understand that college football is not the same game that I grew up loving. I’m okay with most of what we’ve had to give up to allow the game to become what it has today. But where is the line?  

Coach Kiffin’s decisions are turning LSU into a national villain and perhaps the most hated program in history. That’s hard to do—but somehow they’re surpassing the 1980s University of Miami team’s legacy of lawlessness.  

This is personally sad because I have so many relationships with people I love in Baton Rouge. And quick calls to a few of them have shown this disappointment isn’t just “outside the walls” of that college town.  

What is LSU telling the world?  

Well, what they’re saying is that the only thing that matters is winning. Win at all costs. Just win, baby! Win, win, win! 

But as most people know, life is not only about winning. There is a larger picture, even for college football teams. There’s loyalty, honor, and nobility. Those matter and always will. 

Here’s where you might say, “Don, don’t overact! It’s all good, man!” 

But it’s not. LSU bringing in literal pros is not some isolated incident in Baton Rouge. Indeed, one glance at the sports headlines and you’ll see it’s not the only eyebrow-raiser coming out of Louisiana.  

Yep, LSU infamously recently re-hired disgraced men’s basketball coach Will Wade after firing him a few years prior for being caught up in an FBI investigation touched off by recruiting violations. Dirty coach? Sure, bring him back in! 

If that wasn’t enough, the school’s women’s basketball coach, Kim Mulkey, just made an international blunder. She brought in a (patriotic) Russian recruit when she already had Ukrainian center Kate Koval. Stunned by the betrayal and lack of sensitivity, Koval recently announced she’s left the team.  

Who could have guessed? (I ask, ironically.)  

You don’t have to be a policial-science professor to realize what was at stake. But thinking about that was too much for Mulkey or athletic director, Verge Ausberry, who was hired in 2025 and has seemingly been campaigning to be let go ever since.  

On Saturday, LSU and Coach Kiffin will take on Clemson in the latest installment of that Tiger v Tiger rivalry. And I can’t tell you how  hard I’ll be rooting for the school from South Carolina. In some ways, to me at least, it’s a matchup of good versus evil.  

My biggest fear, though, is this: What if Coach Kiffin wins. What if his ugly strategy pays off.  

Who or what is next?  

My hope is that Kiffin and LSU fall flat on their faces. That the NCAA—or whatever body is governing these teams—makes a rule that if you play a snap in a pro uniform, you’ve played your last in college.  

LSU and Kiffin losing big would could halt this nonsense.  

I don’t begrudge the players Kiffin and others are recruiting. But I do blame the coaches, the athletic directors, the judges and the lawmakers.  

What lessons are we teaching our kids, young people, and leaders of tomorrow? Throw out everything for a ‘W’ at the end of the day? Are those the lessons our parents taught us?  

Seriously: what are we doing?  

Well I know what LSU is doing. They’re becoming the most hated college sports program in America.  

But while they might not care about integrity, the rest of us do.