Lane Kiffin names one culprit as LSU-Alabama game disappears in 2027

Lane Kiffin coaches his first game against the Alabama Crimson Tide as head coach of the LSU Tigers at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday in Tiger Stadium, with No. 9 Alabama and No. 15 LSU both sitting at 6-2 and chasing a College Football Playoff spot. At his Monday press conference, he talked about what happens to the series after that kickoff.

The two programs have played every season since 1964, and that run stops after this one. The SEC left the game off the list of annual opponents when it moved to nine conference games, so 2027 is an off year.

“I think that’s just sad. And I understand, so I’m not being critical. All the decisions, usually, I think all of them probably really come down to money, whether that’s the realignments, whether that’s the rivalries. So, I think it’s all sad in general in the big picture of things that money drives to make [changes to] such great traditions and rivalries. And there’s really good things that have changed in college football over the years, but there’s also a lot that I think myself and a lot of people wish that they were the way that they were, rivalries and conferences the same. And so unfortunately it’s where we are that really doesn’t seem like much is going to be protected when it comes to TV contracts and money and other people’s ideas,” Kiffin said, shared by Mike Scarborough on X.

When the SEC adopted nine games in August 2025, Eric Fisher of Front Office Sports put the extra ESPN money at an estimated $5 million for each school every year, which comes to about $80 million annually across 16 members and backs up the first half of Kiffin’s complaint.

Commissioner Greg Sankey’s statement on the move leaned on the same word Kiffin landed on Monday.

Lane Kiffin on LSU-Alabama no longer being an annual rivalry: “I think that’s just sad.”

He’s right. TV money and conference realignment have taken a wrecking ball to some of college football’s greatest traditions.

#LSU-Alabama should be played EVERY year. Period. https://t.co/64hNFuO1hQ

— Mike Scarborough (@ScarboroughMike) November 2, 2026

“This format protects rivalries, increases competitive balance, and paired with our requirement to play an additional Power opponent, ensures SEC teams are well prepared to compete and succeed in the College Football Playoff,” Sankey said.

Mike Griffith of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted that Kiffin was among those who objected publicly at the 2025 SEC spring meetings, when he was still with the Ole Miss Rebels. He brought the format up again in September, after LSU had to play in Oxford for a second straight year.

“Never in that LSU-Ole Miss series had it ever been played two times in a row (in Oxford), so that game was supposed to be here and this one was supposed to be there. So these are the scheduling parts that come with our awesome move to nine games that has sure looked so great here lately,” Kiffin said.

How the SEC’s annual-opponent list left LSU-Alabama out

ESPN reported that the league weighed historical rivalries, competitive fairness and geography when it set each school’s three fixed games. Alabama got the Auburn Tigers, the Tennessee Volunteers and the Mississippi State Bulldogs, whose campus sits about 90 miles away. LSU got the Texas A&M Aggies, the Arkansas Razorbacks and Ole Miss. Scarborough also pointed out that LSU-Alabama only took on real rivalry status once Nick Saban left LSU and eventually landed in Tuscaloosa, and that gives the SEC a defensible argument on tradition.

Saturday’s game is on ABC with playoff stakes for both teams, so the tradition argument has a harder time on television. The SEC lined up more ESPN money for more conference games and, in the same move, took one of its showcase games off the annual slate. Fans in Baton Rouge and Tuscaloosa can fairly ask what the extra inventory bought them.

SEC has taken LSU to court over the school’s signing of former professional athletes, so “I’m not being critical” is a generous line from this particular coach. He joked last week about what the afternoon kickoff might say about his standing with the league.

“I was like, ‘If someone thinks the SEC wants us to win this year after what’s been going on, they must’ve just been on Mars the last four months.’ I guess when I look at it that way, I’m not surprised,” Kiffin said.

The first cycle of annual opponents runs through 2029, and Glenn Guilbeau of Tiger Rag noted that the next rotation starts in 2030 and could be altered before then. Saturday’s game and the 2028 trip to Tuscaloosa are the only LSU-Alabama meetings anyone can point to.

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