Lane Kiffin didn’t hide his surprise when the SEC dropped kickoff times for Nov. 7 and put Alabama-LSU in the mid-afternoon window instead of under the lights.
“I never even considered that it wouldn't be at night,” Kiffin said during Wednesday’s teleconference.
That reaction fit the general vibe around the league’s decision. For a rivalry that has lived in prime time for years, a 3:30 p.m.
ET kickoff felt out of step. The Alabama-LSU game has been played at night for the last six seasons, and the last time it wasn’t a night game in Baton Rouge came back in 2010.
Kiffin said he simply assumed the meeting would land where so many others have.
“I didn't even think to think about the time,” Kiffin said. “I just assumed, especially since the last 16 years, this game has been at night here all the time. I guess that's probably naive of me.”
What made the scheduling twist stand out even more was that Ole Miss, Kiffin’s former school, landed the primetime slot for its home game against Georgia. Given the legal battles involving Kiffin, LSU and the SEC, the LSU coach joked that the league might be trying to make life harder on him.
“I was joking to [LSU SID Michael Bonnette] earlier, saying obviously the SEC wanted to change it from how it's been to give LSU less of an advantage because of how well LSU plays at night and how intimidating it is to play here,” Kiffin said. “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.”
Even with the surprise, this isn’t the first time Alabama and LSU have met in the afternoon. The last 3:30 p.m.
ET kickoff between the teams came in 2019, when Joe Burrow led No. 2 LSU into Bryant-Denny Stadium against Tua Tagovailoa and No.
3 Alabama in one of the most anticipated games of the 21st century.
Still, the conversation around this matchup always comes back to Tiger Stadium at night, and how rarely Alabama has let LSU turn that environment into a difference-maker. The Tigers have played the Crimson Tide at night in Baton Rouge every other year since 2012, but the results haven’t gone LSU’s way. Alabama has won six of the last seven night games there, with LSU’s lone win coming in 2022.
Here’s how those games have gone:
2012: Alabama 21-17
2014: Alabama 20-13
2016: Alabama 10-0
2018: Alabama 29-0
2020: Alabama 55-17
2022: LSU 32-31
2024: Alabama 42-13
So while a night kickoff has long been part of the lore, it hasn’t guaranteed LSU anything against Alabama. This year’s LSU team may be more talented than most of the ones on that list, but the afternoon setting still gives Tiger Stadium a chance to be loud and unruly when the game arrives.
And no matter what time the ball is kicked, Kiffin will feel the heat. LSU already has at least two losses, and another defeat to Alabama would make the Tigers’ College Football Playoff path very narrow.
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