If Lane Kiffin Plans to Stay at Ole Miss, He Should String LSU & Florida Along For As Long As He Possibly Can
Lane Kiffin is up to something. He's got the Ole Miss Rebels at 10-1. His team is ranked #6 in the country. They're an Egg Bowl victory over Mississippi State away (a game in which they'll probably be 10-point favorites) from sealing their spot in the College Football Playoff. They might even make the playoffs with a loss. Ole Miss has as good of a shot to win the National Championship as they've ever had. As good of a shot to win it as anyone not named Ohio State... or probably Georgia... maybe Notre Dame... honestly I kinda like Texas Tech over them too... same with Indiana if they can get healthy... but you get my point. Ole Miss is squarely in the mix to compete for a National Championship.
That being the case, the way Lane Kiffin is so publicly entertaining/outright teasing the LSU Tigers and Florida Gators job openings is a little crazy. For a coach in the midst of what you'd think would be the most important few weeks of his coaching career... there's a whole lot of this going on...
Knowing Lane Kiffin's history, it's not surprising. He clearly loves this shit. He loves his name being the center of attention. There a bunch of theories out there as to what exactly Lane Kiffin plans to do. Apparently LSU has put together a financial package that would see him being paid over $13M/year.
Apparently he just met with Florida yesterday.
On top of that, there's a report that Ole Miss, in the midst of the most important football season in the history of their school, have been forced to give their head football coach an ultimatum. Where if Lane Kiffin doesn't come to a decision by November 28th, they will have no choice but to… idk. To probably do nothing at all.
I mean seriously… what is Ole Miss gonna do? Tell him he's not allowed come back if he doesn't give them a final answer by next Friday? Yeah right. Lane Kiffin could probably accept the LSU job, move his entire family to Baton Rouge, and if a month before next season starts he says, "Nevermind! I made a mistake! I want back at Ole Miss!", they'd probably roll out the red carpet and welcome him back with open arms.
But according to Lane Kiffin, the whole Ole Miss ultimatum thing is completely made up anyways.
Personally, I don't think Lane's going anywhere. I like Brandon Walker's theory on the whole situation. I'm not sure if Brandon actually knows anything, or what he's been told, or if he's even been told anything at all. But this whole thing really does smell like it's leading up to Lane Kiffin making a heroic return to Ole Miss.
But the reason I bother re-hashing the whole Lane Kiffin saga that everyone already knows, is because if you really think about what LSU & Florida are doing right now, what Lane Kiffin is doing might be genius. And it has nothing to do with driving his price up and squeezing a few extra million out of Ole Miss. If I were Lane Kiffin right now, I would be trying to get both LSU & Florida's hopes up as much as humanly possible. If I were able to, I would drag this thing out well into the off-season.
At this point in time, we've all become pretty numb to how the college football coaching carousel works. Every year coaches quit on their teams for better opportunities before the season has ended. Everyone acknowledges it's kinda messed up, yet we've all pretty much just come to accept it. But what LSU & Florida are doing to Ole Miss and Lane Kiffin right now should be so fucking insulting. For the past three seasons, Ole Miss has been the significantly better football team out of the three. The idea that Lane Kiffin should take time out of his schedule at this point in the season, while he's achieving something at Ole Miss that neither LSU or Florida has been able to achieve in years… that is such a slap in the face.
Which to me, means Lane Kiffin is well within his right to use his position to fuck with LSU & Florida's coaching search as much as they'll allow for it. If Lane Kiffin plans to stay at Ole Miss, he's going to be competing with these teams in the SEC for the foreseeable future. Why not straight up lie to both of them? Why not string them along for as long as he can? Why not send your daughter to every LSU Women's Booster Club meeting there is? Just to keep their hopes up.
Why not string them along long enough so that their second option gets scooped up by Florida State. Long enough so that their third option gets taken by Penn State. Then out of nowhere, their fourth option gets hired by Michigan, who in a surprise move fires Sherrone Moore immediately after losing by 50 to OSU. I don't think that last one is going to happen, but you never know. Things move fast in the world of college football. Maybe LSU & Florida are both hot enough jobs that any coach they have on their radar will wait around for their decision before accepting another job. But at the same time… Florida's last hire was Billy Napier. Every day LSU & Florida go without hiring a coach, they risk something happening.
If I were Lane, and I knew for a fact I was coming back to Ole Miss, I'd tell my team & the Ole Miss administration exactly what my plan was. Then I'd go out there and do exactly what he's doing right now. And I'd do it for as long as I possibly could. Just to give my current team any possible competitive advantage over LSU & Florida for the next however many years.
Knowing Lane Kiffin's history, considering the way he left Tennessee, it would be crazy to think him leaving Ole Miss isn't a possibility. I have a feeling the Ole Miss administration is probably sitting there sweating bullets as much as their fan base. But when you really think about what LSU & Florida are doing right now, and how insulting that is to Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin absolutely should throw a big fat wrench in their coaching search. If LSU & Florida are going to be bold enough to give a successful coach within their own conference a chance to fuck them over, they can't be surprised if takes that opportunity.