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Early last week, LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry sent a message. Ole Miss had been jumped by Oregon in the College Football Playoff rankings even though it had not played a game the weekend before, and Ausberry wanted to tease him a little bit. What he said encapsulated the way sold Kiffin on the job.

“Teams don’t jump LSU,” Ausberry said.

LSU a few days later, and Kiffin was introduced as the new head coach Monday afternoon inside a club level overlooking Tiger Stadium. When Kiffin walked into the room, school officials, donors and other prominent figures gave him a standing ovation. A photoshopped picture of Kiffin wearing an LSU visor filled screens throughout the stadium.

The news conference took place the day after Kiffin left an Ole Miss team on the cusp of hosting a first-round College Football Playoff game. He is the first head coach to leave a playoff-bound power conference team, and Kiffin mentioned a few times that he felt torn. At one point, he said the only way to describe the process over the final days was that “it sucked.”

But Kiffin did leave, taking over a team that went 7-5 this year while he led No. 7 Ole Miss to its first 11-win regular season in school history. Why? Kiffin saw LSU as one of the premier jobs in college football, a place where he could finally win his first national championship. Now 50 years old and in his sixth stop as a head coach, he made a move that he hopes will define his career.

“Somebody very close to me reminded me this week that LSU is the best job in football,” Kiffin said.

That person may have been Pete Carroll or . Kiffin talked to both of them, looking for advice from former bosses that he considers his mentors. He suggested Saban told him to take the LSU job like he once did, saying, “I respect him, so there's a reason I'm here.” Carroll told him that Kiffin's late father, Monte, would have advised him to go.

“I felt like everybody that I talked to outside of the state that I was in all basically said the same thing,” Kiffin said. “They all said, ‘Man, you are going to regret it if you don't take the shot and you don't go to LSU. It's the best job in America with the best resources and to win it.’”

There was mutual interest from the beginning. LSU put together a list of names after the Oct. 26 firing of Brian Kelly, and Ausberry said the search committee “performed due diligence on several other candidates.” Sources said Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz was high on the list as a backup option. But the primary target was always Kiffin.

“Lane’s name kept popping up,” Ausberry said. “You know what? Let’s take a shot at him.”

A longtime LSU athletic official, Ausberry led the search himself for the first time after LSU parted with athletic director Scott Woodward within a week of firing Kelly. Ausberry had been involved in hiring LSU’s previous four football coaches in some capacity. When LSU promoted him to the full-time role, his connections with agents and coaches were viewed as an advantage.

Ausberry talked to former LSU players Booger McFarland, Ryan Clark and Marcus Spears, as well as former coaches. He mentioned one “who worked here,” hinting again at Saban. Ausberry wanted to ask people in the industry about Kiffin to make sure he would be a good fit. He also watched Ole Miss games, seeing how the team played and the way the offense functioned.

“He has a talent that not many people have,” Ausberry said. “Steve Spurrier had this talent. Nick Saban has this talent. Skip Bertman has this talent where they can look at a game and say, ‘Do this right now. Run this play right now.’ Not many guys can do that.”

At some point in the process, Ausberry flew to meet with Kiffin. He did not specify the location or date of the meeting when asked. Ausberry said it lasted about an hour and 20 minutes, which can be short for these things. He asked what Kiffin needed around him to be successful and what the coach expected from LSU’s administration, not his ideas about offensive game plans or potential staff.

“‘I'm going to leave you alone and let you coach the team,’” Kiffin said of Ausberry’s pitch. “I like when I hear that we're going to give you everything to win, and I'm going to leave you alone and go coach the team and bring us championships.”

LSU’s pursuit heated up Nov. 17, when school officials sent a private plane to bring several of Kiffin’s family members, including his ex-wife, Layla Kiffin, to Baton Rouge. They spent the day looking at neighborhoods and learning about high schools. Kiffin understood his decision affected his children and the family of his brother, Ole Miss defensive analyst Chris Kiffin, who followed him to LSU.

Kiffin’s family took a similar trip the day before to Gainesville, Florida, as he considered the Florida job. Layla Kiffin’s late father, John Reaves, played quarterback for the Gators and returned to coach at the school in the early 1990s.

“Those are the things that we were a little afraid of,” Ausberry said. “That’s that pull to Gainesville. When she came to Baton Rouge, she was like, ‘Wow, I really like this place.’”

Over the rest of the week, LSU officials assembled their seven-year, $91-million contract offer. It came with a $13 million annual salary that made Kiffin the second-highest paid coach in college football behind Georgia’s Kirby Smart, a buyout guaranteeing 80% of his salary and even the postseason if Ole Miss let him coach in the CFP. Though Gov. Jeff Landry criticized similar deals last month, Kiffin said he “had a unique, great call” with Landry during the process.

Kiffin joked Monday that he did not know the numbers inside his deal. He asked his agent, Jimmy Sexton, to tell him instead how much the teams — LSU, Florida, Ole Miss and a fourth unnamed suitor — were willing to spend on the roster. LSU has prepared to commit $25-30 million annually, sources said. Ausberry claimed donors who have already given NIL money want to spend more and that some who haven’t contributed before are now willing to do so. Kiffin spoke to some boosters in recent weeks.

“This was the best setup,” Kiffin said. “That definitely played a factor into it. Because I don't care what your systems are, without good players, they don't work.”

Other factors included being at the only power conference school in a talent-rich state and a stadium known as one of the most hostile environments in college football. A few weeks ago, Kiffin took a shot at Ole Miss’ home crowd sizes when asked about a record-setting night against Florida, saying, “Were you here last week?” He mentioned two of the most intense feelings of his career were overtime games as an opponent in Tiger Stadium.

“I always thought to myself, man, what if we had that advantage on our side?” Kiffin said.

Still, Kiffin called the past six years at Ole Miss “the best six years of my life.” He had a team heading toward the CFP for the first time, which LSU was willing to let him coach in as long as it had a guarantee that he was coming afterward. He had turned Ole Miss into a contender, but Ausberry and others convinced him he could do more at LSU.

“You did as good as you could at Ole Miss,” Ausberry told him. “You want to get to the championship game and compete and win that national championship, this is what you have to do.”

LSU officials felt confident they would land Kiffin for more than a week, but with the timing complicated by his desire to coach in the CFP, there were some nerves until he signed the deal. After LSU lost to Oklahoma in the regular season, administrators took a private plane back to Baton Rouge. Ausberry and his team gathered in a conference room at a private hangar owned by a prominent booster to close the hire, and Kiffin signed a term sheet late Saturday night.

Kiffin said he presented Ole Miss brass with a plan for how he could still coach the team in the playoffs during conversations that took place Saturday night and into Sunday morning. Kiffin claimed he did not know until 30 minutes before a team meeting scheduled for 9 a.m. Sunday that Ole Miss administrators were not going to allow him to coach in the playoffs, which Kiffin said delayed the meeting into the afternoon. His clothes were put on the street, and he was gone.

As he drove to the Oxford airport with his teenage son, Kiffin claimed Ole Miss fans tried to “run” him off the road. He understood their reactions to his departure, saying “it's the passion of the SEC.” That did not make the messy split any easier. He even questioned the decision on the flight to Baton Rouge. But once he stepped off the plane, he was reminded why he took the job.

In the same private hangar where LSU officials closed the deal the night before, Kiffin was greeted by a group of administrators, high-level donors and other LSU supporters. He said he “felt the power of this place” at that moment, a feeling that grew as he saw the fans who came to celebrate his arrival and the trophies in LSU’s facility.

“This place is built for championships with championship expectations,” Kiffin said. “We understand that, but as an elite competitor, that's exactly what you want, and that's why we're here.”

As he rode with his family past Tiger Stadium toward his new office, the lights glowed through a cold and dreary Sunday night. Kiffin called Ed Orgeron, a longtime friend and one of three LSU coaches to win a national title this century. He joked that being there himself now made him want to talk like his gravel-voiced Cajun friend.

“I don't know, man,” Kiffin said, “I'm feeling you right now.”

“Coach,” Kiffin recalled Orgeron saying, “you're at the best place in America.”