BATON ROUGE - As LSU prepares to take on Ole Miss in one of the most highly anticipated games of the season, many staff members and players on either team are very familiar with the other.

When Lane Kiffin took the head coaching job at LSU, nearly his entire offensive staff came with him from Ole Miss. In fact, 26 staff members from coaches to support staff all took jobs at LSU. 

Additionally, four players turned from Rebels to Tigers in the offseason and are having productive seasons so far for LSU.

On the flip side, just a few former LSU staff members and players made the switch to Ole Miss. General manager Austin Thomas and running backs coach Frank Wilson now serve the same position for the Rebels. Running back JT Lindsey and offensive lineman Carius Curne transferred from LSU to Ole Miss.

When it comes to game planning for this matchup, Kiffin thinks the familiar faces on the opposite sideline may give the advantage to Ole Miss head coach Pete Golding.

"I think this is a really unusual thing to talk about the familiarity with offensive players, but there's so much familiarity. You know, when when I worked for (Nick) Saban, I think after I left, it benefited me as the coordinator on the opposite side of the head coach much more. It benefited him and me. We went to go play, like when we first played COVID year, whatever, and it's 60 to 50 because I had listened for three years to all the things he would teach us that he didn't like, you know, and then we end up using. So I think in this way, you know, this benefits them more than us in the ocean way because Pete (Golding) sat there and for many years we're together and hear me say what we don't like to play against because as a head coach on that side of the ball, Saban and I are much more going to tell them what we should play things that causes problems than the coordinators would tell the head coach if that makes sense, so there's just a lot of fill up in their area that's probably never happened before. We'll play the next year, and half the coaches are split, and they're the coaches of the previous place, and the players," Kiffin said.

No. 7 LSU will face No. 8 Ole Miss on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. in Oxford. The game will be televised on WBRZ.