Every drama needs a villain — a Voldemort or a Darth Vader — and there is no shortage of them in college football as we begin the 2026 season.
At times, it seems as if some were trying to win the role, doing everything they could to convince people to cheer against them. But enough about Lane Kiffin.
Here is the first-team all-villain lineup.
Lane Kiffin/LSU — How does he do it? How does Kiffin manage to tick off people everywhere he coaches? Is it just a gift?
Kiffin has built a career as a villain, conducting a scorched-earth campaign through college and pro football. He’s had more bad breakups than Brad Pitt. Coaching gigs with the Raiders, Tennessee, USC, Alabama, Florida Atlantic and Ole Miss all ended with him being banished and reviled.
He’s been fired on the phone and fired at an airport. He incited riots at one stop. He’s been sent packing by two teams while they were preparing for the College Football Playoff. He’s managed to anger coaches, NFL owners, college administrators, students and fans (did we miss anyone?), all of whom have offered scathing commentary on the man (using words such as “unethical,” “liar,” etc.).
Kiffin was the head coach at Ole Miss last winter, preparing for the playoffs, when he began making a deal to move to LSU. He wanted to continue coaching Ole Miss and said the players demanded it; they said no, they didn’t, and Ole Miss officially ordered him to vacate. Fans gathered at the airport to boo and curse him as he boarded a private jet to rival LSU. LSU and Ole Miss will play one another Sept. 19. Should be fun.
Post script: Guess who is in the middle of yet another college football controversy? Yep, leave it to Kiffin to lead the way in exploiting the latest recruiting loophole — signing professional players who have been waived by NFL teams. His own conference firmly opposes it, as does anyone with any common sense.
Ole Miss/Trinidad Chambliss — After quarterback Trinidad Chambliss was denied a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA, he sued, and a Mississippi court granted an injunction, leaving the NCAA helpless to stop him. He will return this season. The five-for-five rule adopted this offseason will be a welcome change — but too late to stop this guy. Or this guy: Miami linebacker Mohamed Toure, back for an eighth year of eligibility.
Texas Tech — The Red Raiders were maligned last season for buying a place among the elite teams in the nation, spending more NIL money on their roster than any school except Texas. That hardly seemed a good reason to hate on them — after all, all they did was play the same game as the blue blood programs, only better. But then in the offseason, they made a more legit bid for the villain role. They threw a lifeboat to quarterback Brendan Sorsby.
The NCAA declared Sorsby ineligible after he admitted to making thousands of sports bets, including on his own team’s games. Sorsby sued and won an injunction from a Texas court judge, allowing him to play. The sports world was outraged. Schools and conferences held meetings and declared they would not play the Red Raiders. Eventually, the backlash became too much for Sorsby and he bowed out, but now we know the win-at-all-costs mentality of Tech.
Utah — What university forces out the winningest coach in school history (by far), one who, over the course of 21 seasons, earned 16 bowl berths, including two Rose Bowls and one Sugar Bowl, put the team in the final national rankings 10 times (once as high as No. 2), and returns the key players from a 10-win team last year, all so the school can hire his younger assistant? So long, Kyle Whittingham.
Michigan/Kyle Whittingham — Look at the program that Whittingham has taken over in Michigan. Whittingham’s predecessor, Sherrone Moore, was fired for an affair with a staffer; athletic director Warde Manuel has been forced to resign at the end of the year for failure to act on problems in the athletic department (see the Sherrone Moore case, etc.), offensive coordinator Kirk Campbell was fired in 2024 after accusations that he hacked into the computers of more than 3,000 students, and the NCAA punished the school in two separate cases, one of them being the infamous sign-stealing scandal.
Then there’s Whittingham himself. He took five Utah assistant coaches and four Utah players to Michigan with him — John Henry Daley (who will start at D-end for Michigan), Jonah Lea’ea (who’s in the rotation on the D-line), JJ Buchanan (starting wide receiver), Smith Snowden (who will start in the secondary and return kicks). Which is why a Utah official noted that Whittingham didn’t live up to the part of his contract that required him to facilitate the transition to a new coach at Utah — quite to the contrary — but it wasn’t worth the hassle of legal action; instead of suing him, they paid him a $13.5 million transition bonus (whatever that is) just to be done with him (remember this, fans, when you pay your season-ticket bill).
Post script: Utah recently filed a lawsuit against Whittingham’s brother/assistant coach, Freddie Whittingham, seeking a total of more than $1.3 million for breach of contract and damages. Conclusion: The breakup of Utah and Whittingham was not handled well by anyone.
Notre Dame — The school of Rudy and the Gipper threw a tantrum last winter when the Fightin’ Irish didn’t get their way. After they failed to secure a berth in the College Football Playoff, they turned into the Poutin’ Irish and announced they would not play in any bowl game. They took their ball and went home.
The move was met with universal condemnation. It was a PR nightmare. It was the behavior of a spoiled child. The irony of it was too much. The Irish have been given preferential treatment for decades by college football. No team has benefitted more from college football’s system than Notre Dame — and it continues. Starting this season, Notre Dame is guaranteed a playoff spot if it finishes in the top 12 of the rankings. Notre Dame was given a similar stipulation in the old BCS.
Alabama — Alabama is a villain because … they’re Alabama.
Texas — The Longhorns haven’t won a national championship since 2005. You have to go all the way back to 1970 to find another one. And yet they are treated like, well, Alabama. They are No. 5 in this year’s preseason rankings; they were No. 1 in last year’s preseason rankings; they were No. 4 in preseason rankings for 2024.
The preseason rankings matter; they provide a head start on the rankings — a high ranking is now theirs to lose.
