playBill ConnellySep 18, 2026, 09:36 AM ETCloseBill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.Multiple AuthorsOpen Extended ReactionsThe desire for revenge takes many forms in college football. Maybe your team wants to get one back on the program that derailed last season.
Maybe a coach gets a shot at a school that fired him years ago. Maybe a mid-major takes full advantage of a coach who left the school as a stepping stone to something greater.(That last category is my personal favorite. In 1975, Sonny Randle left East Carolina for Virginia after years of saying “Compare apples to apples” when his Pirates would get thumped by a bigger, better team. That fall, ECU visited Charlottesville and obliterated Randle’s Cavaliers 61-10.
As the story goes, ECU fans threw apples onto the field afterward.)This week, we’re focusing on a specific category of revenge: The Return of the Turncoat. On Saturday, Lane Kiffin will take the LSU Tigers to Oxford to face the Ole Miss team he ditched before last year’s College Football Playoff began. In case the timing of the move — and the almost brazen way he seemed to be recruiting Ole Miss players to join his new team — wasn’t enough, Kiffin also dug the knife in further by referencing segregation as a reason for his move this spring.Few have ever embraced a heel turn like Kiffin, and in college football, heels have to play on the road just like anyone else. On Saturday evening, Vaught-Hemingway Stadium should be as much of a cauldron as it has ever been.To commemorate the occasion, let’s look back at 10 particularly fiery turncoat revenge situations.
Sometimes, the home team harnesses the anger and turns it into something beautiful. Sometimes, it very much does not.1966: No. 4 Notre Dame 35, Northwestern 7In 1962, Northwestern scored one of the costlier victories you’ll see, pummeling Notre Dame 35-6. The win moved the Wildcats to No. 1 in the AP poll for the first time, a reign that would last two games before an unceremonious 37-6 loss to eventual Big Ten champion Wisconsin. But it also moved Ara Parseghian to the top of Notre Dame’s wish list; the school scooped him up a year later.Parseghian’s successor, Alex Agase, would find brief success in Evanston after a few years, but by the time Parseghian brought his Irish to town in 1966, he had built the best football team in the country in South Bend.
Jim Seymour caught nine passes for 141 yards, and Notre Dame won 35-7 despite committing five turnovers and Parseghian emptying his bench in the fourth quarter.Revenge mission accomplished? Not even close.1967: Texas A&M 20, No. 8 Alabama 16In the run-up to the 1968 Cotton Bowl — technically not a home game for Texas A&M, but we’ll make an exception for this home-state affair — an AP wire photo made the rounds showing Texas A&M All-American Bill Hobbs and teammates Grady Allen and Bob Long posing in front of A&M’s athletic dorms with hunting rifles. The caption: “Best of the Bear Hunters.”The Aggies had been pining for revenge since Bear Bryant left for Alabama in late 1957; he had departed in the most frustrating way possible, too: A&M was 8-0 and ranked No. 1 in the country when rumors of his exit began to swirl. The Aggies lost their last three games of the season then suffered losing records in their next nine seasons.But in 1967, with future Alabama coach Gene Stallings in charge, the Aggies overcame an 0-4 start to win six straight games and earn a Southwest Conference title and a Cotton Bowl revenge opportunity.
In front of 75,504, they allowed a Ken Stabler touchdown run to start the game but went on a 20-3 run to seize control.Revenge mission accomplished? Yes.1970: No. 11 Tennessee 38, Florida 7″I know they’re fast because I recruited every one of them.”That’s what Doug Dickey told the media in the run-up to his return to Knoxville. The Florida grad returned home after six years in charge (with two top-10 finishes) at Tennessee — and the schedule-makers sent him right back to Neyland Stadium to face Bill Battle’s Vols during his first season in Gainesville.Amid a sea of “Doug who?” buttons, Tennessee rolled. Dickey loaded up against a strong Vols run game and forced quarterback Bobby Scott to win the game.
He did. Scott threw for 385 yards and two touchdowns as Tennessee gained 543 total yards and scored the game’s final 24 points. The Volunteers would finish 11-1 and No. 4 in the country. It would take Dickey until his fifth year to generate his only top-15 finish.Revenge mission accomplished?
Yes.1988: No. 3 USC 38, Arizona 15In 1981, Larry Smith led Arizona to its first-ever win against USC, a 13-10 shocker over the top-ranked Trojans. Smith would lead the Wildcats as high as No. 3 in the country at one point in 1983, and the Wildcats finished at No. 11 in 1986, his final season. He left to take over at USC, and in 1988, he brought the No. 3 team in the country, fresh off a win over Oklahoma, to Tucson for the first time.Whatever revenge Arizona had in mind was done in by the Wildcats’ generosity. In front of 52,314 at Arizona Stadium, USC recovered three fumbles and turned them into touchdowns.
The Wildcats went up 7-6, but Tucson native and former Arizona water boy Rodney Peete threw three touchdown passes, and USC rolled to an easy win with Smith-style ball control.Revenge mission accomplished? No.2000: Auburn 35, Ole Miss 27Ole Miss scored road revenge on Tommy Tuberville in 1999. Tuberville, maybe the only coach as skilled as Kiffin in the unceremonious exit department, had famously said, “They’ll have to carry me out of here in a pine box” as rumors of his departure swirled in 1998. He left of his own volition soon after, and his first Auburn team was beaten 24-17 by Ole Miss at home.Maybe that dampened the vibe.
Tuberville’s first trip back to Oxford was rather accommodating. In front of a record Oxford crowd of 52,368, Auburn committed 12 penalties for 112 yards, roughed the punter twice, lost a fumble and fell behind 7-0. But behind Rudi Johnson’s 205 yards from scrimmage, the Tigers still pulled ahead. Johnson’s second touchdown gave them a 28-27 lead early in the fourth quarter, and a Ben Leard sneak put the game away.Revenge mission accomplished?
Yes, then no.2006: No. 6 Florida 17, South Carolina 16This return was a little different. Steve Spurrier left Florida for an ill-fated NFL stint following the 2001 season, and after 11 top-10 finishes in 12 years, the Gator program lost its footing in his absence. When Spurrier returned to the college ranks in 2005, he did it at Florida’s SEC East rival South Carolina, then he guided the Gamecocks over the Gators 30-22 in Columbia on his first try. And when he led the Gamecocks to Gainesville late in the 2006 season, they had a chance to derail the national title hopes for Urban Meyer’s Gators.The vibes for this game were perhaps more anxious than revenge-oriented then, and the anxiety only increased when South Carolina took two separate leads in the fourth quarter.
Tim Tebow’s 12-yard score gave the Gators a 17-16 lead with 3:03 left; however, the Gamecocks got one last shot and almost took advantage. But after blocking a PAT earlier in the fourth quarter, Florida’s Jarvis Moss also blocked Ryan Succop’s 48-yard field goal in the final minute. The Gators barely survived and won their first post-Spurrier national title four games later.Revenge mission accomplished? Just barely.2008: No. 1 Alabama 27, No. 15 LSU 21This was another Spurrier-style revenge game — Nick Saban hadn’t left LSU directly for Alabama, but after a short stint in the pros, Saban was lured back to the SEC after just two years away.
LSU fans weren’t impressed. Saban’s first Bama team was flawed and lost to the Tigers in Tuscaloosa, but by the time Alabama headed to Baton Rouge a year later, Saban’s recruiting had kicked in. The Tide had just moved to No. 1 for the first time in 16 years, and they would win their f
Leave a Reply