Inside Lane Kiffin's villainous exit from Ole Miss, hero's arrival at LSU

BATON ROUGE, LA – Verge Ausberry had secured the greatest booty of college football’s coaching carousel , but LSU’s athletic director still had to travel behind enemy lines to retrieve it.

No trouble, right? Fly into Mississippi. Pick up the package. Fly out.

Ha. Nothing about hiring Lane Kiffin could ever be so easy.

The initial plan had been that LSU’s plane would pick up Kiffin from the Tupelo airport, 50 miles from the University of Mississippi. At least that would provide some distance between the LSU envoy and the Ole Miss fans furious by Kiffin’s heel turn .

Once aboard the plane, Ausberry learned plans had changed. They’d be flying into Oxford, ground zero itself, to secure LSU's prize.

“I said, ‘We’re going where? Oxford? They’ll be shooting missiles at us,’” Ausberry