Who would have thought the “transfer portal king” would pull his ultimate antics against his former team? After making the move to LSU, Lane Kiffin is pulling every string possible to add key players to the team, like going the extra mile to Knoxville for Sam Leavitt. But now he’s trying to get the entire Ole Miss roster, and that’s not sitting well with the program, and Kiffin received heat.

“[Kiffin is] trying to destroy our locker room,” a program source said, according to reports from On3.

While both Ole Miss and LSU boast elite transfer portal classes, Kiffin’s aggressive targeting of his former players has escalated the situation beyond friendly competition. Some players include offensive tackle McKale Boley, linebacker Luke Ferrelli, edge Jordan Renaud, and outside linebacker Blake Purchase.

The conflict deepened when Kiffin’s staff made a failed run at Rebels running back Kewan Lacy, signaling their aggressive approach wasn’t limited to just a few key players. The linebacker Princewill Umanmielen left Ole Miss but later entered the transfer portal.

On top of that, offensive lineman Devin Harper recommitted to Ole Miss but later took a visit to Baton Rouge.

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Harper was with TJ Dottery visiting the LSU Tigers. Dottery didn’t sign a new contract with Ole Miss even though they had been in talks for weeks. But things turned nasty this week when Lane Kiffin shared contract details through agents connected to Ole Miss players in the transfer portal.

Now, using Dottery and other players, Kiffin is trying to get Harper and Umanmielen to his team. These moves have left Ole Miss scrambling. It created a sense of instability and the fear that the program is losing its grip on the roster, as one Rebels source bluntly sums it up, taking a shot at Kiffin.

“[The Rebels are] in hand-to-hand combat with [Kiffin and LSU],” another Ole Miss source said to On3.

Ole Miss alum Sudu Upadhyay made another shocking revelation on Lane Kiffin’s move on his X page: “As one source put it to me earlier tonight: ‘He’s speed dialing the whole roster.'”

His last-minute decision to pull away all his LSU-bound coaches ahead of Ole Miss’s crucial game against Miami already dealt them a brutal blow. Now, all these moves can be because athletic director Keith Carter didn’t allow Kiffin to coach Ole Miss through the Bowl game, but that’s just hampering Ole Miss’s future.

LSU has financial backing, and Lane Kiffin already has an extra $25-30 million dedicated to NIL and revenue sharing to bring in top players to the team. So, fighting against that won’t be that straightforward for Golding and his team. Now, only time will tell whether players choose loyalty to the program or to Kiffin.

Lane Kiffin makes his stance clear on the entire portal chaos

Lane Kiffin isn’t letting Pete Golding’s first full-fledged year run smoothly. They are already leading the SEC transfer portal rankings per 247Sports, at No. 1, while Ole Miss is No. 2. For Kiffin, however, this head-to-head battle for talent seems to be precisely the kind of competition he relishes.

“Two great programs!!! The way it should be,” Lane Kiffin said on X.

Kiffin’s roster overhaul at LSU has been swift and decisive. He addressed the quarterback exodus by bringing in a trio of new signal-callers, including Sam Leavitt, while simultaneously restocking the running back and defensive line rooms.

These are moves that show he’s building a powerhouse at Ole Miss’s expense.