The head of the University of Mississippi's third-party NIL collective claims Ole Miss went to extreme lengths to ensure no tampering or espionage was involved in head football coach Lane Kiffin's departure to Louisiana State.
"We actually had the FBI come through and walk the building for bugs and for everything," Walker Jones, executive director of the Grove Collective at Ole Miss, revealed on a 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 desks and seeing if there was some sort of bug involved. Somebody was like, 'What are you doing?' and I was like, 'Trust me, you don't know this guy [Kiffin] like I do.' "
As reported by Brad Crawford of CBS Sports, "There was legitimate concern Kiffin might leave behind trusted assistants as de facto spies, using their continued access to players and staffers to help coax key pieces of the roster toward Baton Rouge."
Ole Miss officials questioned loyalties, monitored communication and tried to determine which assistants were committed to the Rebels and which remained connected to Kiffin, per Crawford's reporting.
Jones said he spent "several nights" sleeping at the Manning Center — the Ole Miss football performance center — in an effort to retain most of the Rebels' roster.
"What people don't realize is half the staff was going to LSU," Jones said. "We had to have two different text threads, two different staff meetings, we had to ask coaches to leave the room, we had no hall room conversations, nothing written on the grease boards in the office, because we were going to be competing against [half the staff for players]."
LSU lured only a couple of Mississippi's top players, and six players total, but signed the top-rated portal class to complete a roster that exceeds $40 million in payroll. In addition, several former Ole Miss staff members had already agreed to join Kiffin at LSU, including offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. LSU travels to Ole Miss on Sept. 19.
Meanwhile, The Athletic reported that Ole Miss coach Pete Golding, at his Monday press conference on the heels of Jones' weekend podcast appearance, said “there was no hiring process” to bring in the FBI to sweep the Manning Center.
Golding told reporters that Ole Miss has a current player whose father works for the FBI and lives in town. After Kiffin’s departure, Golding led the Rebels to a Sugar Bowl win over Georgia and an appearance in the College Football Playoff semifinals. Golding, who was Alabama’s defensive coordinator during three different Playoff seasons, said that “obviously, you’re going to up security” during high-stakes postseason runs, per The Athletic's Antonio Morales.
