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Former University of Mississippi and current LSU head football coach Lane Kiffin recently set off a national controversy with comments he made in his Vanity Fair<\/em> profile<\/a>. \u201cKiffin also seems willing to indirectly invoke Ole Miss\u2019s struggle to distance itself from symbols like the Confederate flag, Colonel Rebel, and the nickname \u2018Ole Miss\u2019 itself,\u201d VF<\/em> contributing editor Chris Smith wrote.<\/p>\n Kiffin told Smith that some top recruits told him, \u201cHey coach, we really like you, but my grandparents aren\u2019t letting me move to Oxford. That doesn\u2019t come up when you say Baton Rouge, Louisiana,\u201d Kiffin continued. \u201cParents were sitting here [in Baton Rouge] this weekend saying the campus\u2019s diversity feels so great: \u2018It feels like there\u2019s no segregation. And we want that for our kid because that\u2019s the real world.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n (The population of Baton Rouge, home to LSU\u2019s campus, is roughly 51% Black and 36% white, according to 2024 United States census data<\/a>. Oxford, home to Ole Miss, is about 66% white and 26% Black. According to The Athletic,<\/em><\/a> 19% of students enrolled at LSU in the spring of 2025 were Black; about 10% of students at Ole Miss in the fall 2024 semester were Black.)<\/p>\n VF<\/em> also recently published a profile of current University of Mississippi quarterback Trinidad Chambliss<\/a>. The writer of that story, Bomani Jones, asked Chambliss\u2019s family about his recruitment to the university, and they expressed no reservations. \u201cI asked every single member of the Chambliss family if they had any concern about sending their son to play at the University of Mississippi, specifically with the Mississippi part,\u201d Jones wrote on social media<\/a>. \u201cIt was a \u2018no\u2019 all the way across the board.\u201d (But, Jones added, \u201cThey still call themselves \u2018rebels,\u2019\u201d referring to the Confederate origins of the team name.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n