By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Well, at least Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin is not pulling a Nick Saban and insisting repeatedly in interviews that he will stay at Ole Miss … then leave as soon as the season’s over.
That’s what Saban did late in the 2006 season when he was the Miami Dolphins coach as questions were repeatedly asked about his candidacy for the Alabama coaching job.
“I guess I have to say it,” Saban said to yet another question about the Alabama job on Dec. 21, 2006. “I’m not going to be the Alabama coach.”
On Jan. 3, 2007, Saban became the Alabama coach. He later said he wanted to keep the fact that he was deciding upon the Alabama job out of the public so he wouldn’t lose the Dolphins’ locker room after a 9-7 season in his first year as coach in Miami after leaving LSU. Miami lost four of its last five anyway to finish 6-10.
At the Southeastern Conference Media Days in Hoover, Alabama, the next summer, he said he could’ve handled all that better.
Now, almost 20 years later, Saban is trying to convince Kiffin to take the LSU job, if he does decide to leave Ole Miss for LSU or Florida.
Kiffin is using a different strategy at Ole Miss than Saban’s at Miami. He is not denying that he is considering leaving Ole Miss after six seasons – or during his sixth season – to be the coach at LSU or Florida. He is also not confirming that he is considering leaving. He’s just leaving everything alone basically for the time being.
“Man, we’re having a blast,” he said on the Pat McAfee Show on ESPN on Tuesday. “I love it here.”
Ole Miss (10-1, 6-1 SEC) is No. 5 in the nation and a cinch to reach its first College Football Playoff. So considering much of Ole Miss’ past, Ole Miss fans are having a blast, or should be, and surely have since 2021 for the most part under Kiffin.
Kiffin has also not confirmed or denied that his family took a reconnaissance trip to Gainesville, home of the Florida Gators, on Sunday without him and one to Baton Rouge, home of LSU, on Monday.
But he did deny one report that circulated around the country on Monday, including in Tiger Rag – that Ole Miss officials want Kiffin to decide if he is staying at Ole Miss or leaving by the Rebels’ next game at Mississippi State (5-6, 1-6 SEC) on Friday, Nov. 28 (11 a.m., ABC). The Rebels are open this week.
“Yeah, that’s absolutely not true,” Kiffin told McAfee. “There has been no ultimatum, anything like that at all. And so I don’t know where that came from, like a lot of stuff that comes out.”
ESPN reported Kiffin’s comments, then in the same story said that it still maintains via ESPN sources that Ole Miss officials and Kiffin’s agent Jimmy Sexton are “pressing” Kiffin for a resolution soon.
Tiger Rag quoted a source Monday that is friendly with the Kiffin family.
“Lane Kiffin will not coach Ole Miss in the playoffs unless he is committed to staying at Ole Miss,” the source said. “Lane will decide out of Ole Miss, Florida and LSU this week.”
If Kiffin decides to leave Ole Miss for LSU or Florida soon, Ole Miss may promote an assistant currently on staff to replace Kiffin for the State game or for the playoffs after that. Should Ole Miss beat Mississippi State, it would likely host a CFP game on Dec. 19 or 20 in Oxford.
Ole Miss reportedly does not want a lame duck coach directing the Rebels while preparing to coach another team. Would he be covertly asking Ole Miss players to join him at his new job? Would he be recruiting for LSU or Florida in between Ole Miss practices?
Should Kiffin not make up his mind and not inform Ole Miss of his plans to stay or go and try to coach Ole Miss against Mississippi State or move toward that, he would be leaving the ball in Ole Miss’ court, forcing its hand. That way the decision would be made for him. He might just do that. That would take the pressure off of him. I could see him doing that. Just do nothing.
Then, what would Ole Miss do? Surely, it wouldn’t fire Kiffin.
Stay tuned.
But Ole Miss needs to realize it doesn’t have the leverage here.
Because it’s Lane Kiffin’s world right now, and we’re all – Ole Miss, LSU, Florida and all of us with an interest – just passengers on the Lane Train, waiting to see how we will live after he decides how he will live.
Ole Miss may think it has set an ultimatum. But there is no ultimatum as far as Kiffin is concerned.
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