The final question asked during Lane Kiffin’s weekly Monday news conference had nothing to do with football.
How does Kiffin know Kevin Costner? And did the star of “Field of Dreams,” “Dances With Wolves” and “Yellowstone” enjoy spending time at an LSU game day?
“He did,” Kiffin said. “Obviously he’s had a lot of really cool experiences, and he was saying how cool it was riding the bus and (walking down Victory Hill).”
A surprise, right? It turns out Kiffin has known the movie star for a few years and put him in touch with Raising Cane’s owner Todd Graves, who helped the star of “JFK” navigate the weekend. But Costner’s cameo was just the tip of the iceberg.
Shaquille O’Neal, Paul Skenes, Angel Reese and Olivia Dunne also joined Kiffin and Costner on the team’s walk to Tiger Stadium, and first lady Melania Trump also attended the game. The main attraction was LSU-Alabama, but running parallel to it was a celebrity sideshow.
“(Costner) and I are sitting in the locker room together, and I was like, ‘It’s just so different,’ ” Kiffin said. “ ‘I told you (about) the south and the fall and the tailgating and the passion for it,’ and so he really enjoyed it.”
LSU fans may have enjoyed seeing the army of celebrities, but they weren’t happy with the result of the game. LSU lost 31-13, suffering a loss that greatly damaged its College Football Playoff hopes and may have led some to question whether the stars and spectacle around the team distracted it from the ultimate goal.
Kiffin is not one of those people. He also doesn’t believe the basketball goal on the sideline — where players dunk a basketball after each touchdown — or the fire extinguisher that Cookie, his nephew, discharges after every LSU touchdown have affected his team’s performance this year.
“I don’t consider not doing it,” Kiffin said. “I don’t consider doubling down, either.”
The whole point of having the celebs, hoop and extinguisher is for recruiting and the national perception of his program. Kiffin wants high schoolers across the country to watch LSU on TV and say, “That place is cool; I want to go there.”
“We played great at home for years,” Kiffin said, also referring to his success in home games at Ole Miss, “and we’ve done the same thing.”
But there are distractions Kiffin wants his team to avoid. He doesn’t want his players paying attention to the media, fans or outside criticism surrounding his team, reminding them of that and more in a message he posted on screens throughout the LSU Football Operations Center on Monday.
“When you win, everybody loves you. When you lose, everybody has an opinion,” the message read. “The media questions you. People who have never done what you do tell you what you can’t do. WELCOME TO LSU and THE DARK SIDE OF BEING A VILLAIN.”
LSU should be comfortable with being the villain now, after nearly a year of headlines and controversies surrounding the program. Whether it was Kiffin’s messy divorce with Ole Miss, Gov. Jeff Landry’s involvement with the program or attempting to add NFL players to the LSU roster, attention has followed the program from the moment Kiffin stepped off a private jet and onto Baton Rouge soil last November.
That’s why Costner and others popping up in Baton Rouge on Saturday shouldn’t come as a surprise. Kiffin doesn’t fear the spotlight for his team, even if it can look like a distraction from the outside.
“It doesn’t have to do with winning or losing games,” Kiffin said. “… We had one (celebrity) every game at home so far. Who walked in wasn’t the reason we didn’t execute in the red zone.”
