Lane Kiffin is already getting his excuses ready for LSU's disappointing regular season

Find yourself something or someone you love as much as Lane Kiffin loves making excuses for things that haven't even happened yet.

Kiffin's first season as head coach of the LSU Tigers has been a bit of a roller coaster. They've at times looked dominant, like the opening weekend demolition of Clemson, then struggled in a loss to what should have been an overmatched Kentucky team. The loss at Ole Miss, in a highly charged, emotional return to Oxford was understandable on the face of it, and yet was exactly the type of game Kiffin was hired to win.

Now, with two losses in the first seven games, LSU still has a tough schedule remaining. The Tigers have upcoming games against Auburn on the road this weekend, a home game against Alabama, followed by Texas in Baton Rouge, a road game against Tennessee, and a season-ending trip to Arkansas. For a program that entered the season with aspirations of reaching the College Football Playoff, Kiffin needs to win out to feel good about finishing in playoff position.

LANE KIFFIN IS ALREADY SOMEHOW BLAMING THE SEC'S NEW CONFERENCE SCHEDULE FOR LSU'S INJURIES

And he's already got his excuses ready for if they don't.

In a news conference this week, Kiffin explained to reporters that he opposed the SEC's new nine-game conference schedule, and detailed how the math guarantees the SEC an additional eight in-conference losses.

"And they kinda said when it was proposed, they said, 'Well, okay, you're going to take on eight more losses. I mean, that's going to be real, there's no way of changing the math, that's going to happen. So you see that, I think somebody said there's two SEC teams in the top-10 right now, and I said before it started, I said, 'Take away the first SEC game that you play because that's going to be brand new, the ninth one came early and got added and replaced an early win, you know where's that going to put you?'

"Look at this team [Auburn Tigers], if you took away their first SEC loss, and it was just a win versus a Group of Six team, they'd be a top-10 team right now. They'd have one loss, on the road at Tennessee to a really good team. And somehow now, because of adding an extra game, they're not even ranked and they just beat the number one team in the country."

He concluded the answer, "It's just where football is, and they can't see like they do in basketball or baseball, metrics, so it is what it is."

The reason Auburn isn't ranked is because they don't deserve to be, win over Georgia or not. And the reason the SEC has just two teams in the top 10 is because they keep losing. When asked a follow-up, whether there were any positives to the nine-game schedule, Kiffin was short: "No."

"You're ... just seeing teams with more losses, more beat up. And there's so much into it more than just the losses. You know, it's at a time when because of it, I'm not complaining, I'm saying what it is, because of the [transfer] portal that you can leave every year and NIL, you see players going from teams for more money, and they go to another team in conference.

"And that's fine, it is what it is, but at the same time that you see that, that it's so hard for teams to build depth after their top players ... don't add more