Lane Kiffin and the LSU Tigers allegedly tampered with Washington quarterback Demond Williams Jr. in the January portal despite the latter signing a contract with the Huskies. At the time, the new LSU head coach was aggressively looking for his signal-caller. For Washington head coach Jedd Fisch, it took some convincing to get Williams to stay at the Huskies.

“Demond signed his contract to be a part of our program for another year,” Fisch said on the July 10 episode of The Triple Option podcast. “Everything was great, and we all came back for our first team meeting. And then, when the team meeting ended, he called me and said, ‘Coach, I think I need to go. I need to go in the portal.” And I was like, “What are you talking about, man?” What happened was a program told him they would pay him an extra two million dollars if he goes in the portal. And the kid’s 19 years old, and we were paying him a lot, but you add another two million onto anything.

“He was forced to put something out there, and then, we spent about 24 to 36 hours going back and forth talking about ‘this is the right place for you, you have a contract, and contracts mean something.’ In the end, he came back two days later. We didn’t change anything. We didn’t give him any more money or anything like that. But what we did do is to talk to him about what is great.”

On January 2, Williams signed a contract with the Huskies to return for the 2026 season after a long negotiation. Out of nowhere, he announced he would enter the portal four days later. Major publications at the time reported that LSU could be behind the move. Williams’ father didn’t name Lane Kiffin’s program but confirmed that a figure of $6 million was on the table for the QB to leave Washington.

The whole thing was so sudden that even Williams’ agents didn’t know about the QB’s decision. The timing was terrible. When Williams made the announcement, his teammates were attending a memorial service. The QB later clarified that he wasn’t aware of the service.

On their part, the Huskies refused to entertain the move. They denied him access to the paperwork and began exploring legal options to enforce the contract the QB had signed with the program. The Huskies even called out tampering efforts by other football programs, without naming any.

Williams made all the sense for LSU. He was coming off a 2025 season, where he finished with 3,065 passing yards, 25 touchdowns, and eight interceptions, with a 69.5% pass completion rate. That’s exactly the type of QB the new head coach was looking for. However, in another twist, Williams decided to stay with Washington. That took some conversations between the QB and Fisch.

Williams had to settle for the Huskies, and Kiffin never confirmed or denied the tampering allegations. Even Fisch refused to name anyone.

Sam Leavitt instead of Demond Williams Jr.

Lane Kiffin initially contacted Arizona State quarterback Sam Leavitt and hosted him in Baton Rouge for an official visit. But the Tigers reportedly shifted their focus to Demond Williams after discovering his interest.

With the Williams deal falling through, Kiffin turned to Leavitt again. Interestingly, Leavitt had also visited Miami and was close to joining any of his other suitors before LSU landed him. However, the Tigers managed to mend the relationship that had soured over their interest in the Washington QB.

Leavitt had a season-ending foot injury in 2025 after playing just seven games. As a result, his stats were not as impressive as expected. In these games, he threw for 1,628 passing yards and 10 touchdowns.