Lane Kiffin talks about attaining a higher version of himself, but can he take that show on the road to LSU or Florida?
Lane Kiffin recently gave an interesting quote when asked about his desires for his legacy.
Ole Miss sets a Nov. 29 deadline for Kiffin decision, after Egg Bowl that will influence playoff bid.
“If we would’ve had this conversation 4½ years ago,” Kiffin told me when we spoke before the 2024 season, “I think most people wouldn’t have bet on me still being at Ole Miss.”
That quote came 17 months ago. He’s still at Mississippi.
Yes, call it an upset.
Kiffin, now in his sixth season at Ole Miss, is the SEC’s third-longest-tenured active coach behind Kentucky’s Mark Stoops and Georgia’s Kirby Smart. This has become his best season ever.
With an Egg Bowl victory, Ole Miss would secure a College Football Playoff bid.
Kiffin previously earned a renegade label for how he jetted out of Tennessee after one season in favor of his “dream job,” Southern California. His tour at Ole Miss marks his longest stop in any place since he spent six seasons as a USC assistant.
Are we finally approaching farewell? Kiffin is being pursued by LSU and Florida, while Ole Miss tries to retain him. Rebels athletic director Keith Carter set a Nov. 29 deadline for an announcement on Kiffin’s future.
As with anything involving this mercurial coach, anything’s possible until the ink is dry. Three years ago, Kiffin seriously considered leaving for Auburn before making an about-face. Minutes after the Rebels lost the 2022 Egg Bowl, Kiffin said he planned to stay at Ole Miss.
Never a dull moment with this one.
I’ve interviewed Kiffin several times throughout his Ole Miss tenure. Those conversations always lead down some interesting roads. We’ve spoken at various points about what he thinks of maybe staying at Ole Miss for the long haul, or whether he might crave coaching somewhere else someday.
Kiffin has consistently poured out praise and expressed gratefulness for Ole Miss and Oxford.
“I needed Oxford, Mississippi, and Ole Miss more than they needed me,” he told me in 2024.
And still, I’ve often emerged from our conversations thinking he probably wouldn’t retire from Ole Miss, and he’s open to other paths.
As the Kiffin sweepstakes near a crescendo, I went through my past conversations with Kiffin to see what breadcrumbs he might have sprinkled that could offer further insight.
A word of caution, even as we re-examine these quotes: With Kiffin, you just never totally know how it will land until it finally does.
Let’s look back on Kiffin’s past words and whether they point to an exit:
My take: Kiffin’s reference to the Grove almost reads like a throw-in. Kiffin reveres college football’s venerable cathedrals, where the crowds create a hostile environment for the road team. Early in his Ole Miss tenure, he’d challenge Rebels fans to create a more vibrant atmosphere. In 2022, he compared the second-half Ole Miss crowds to those of a high school game. The Vaught-Hemingway experience improved as the wins piled up, but it’s not The Swamp, and it’s not Tiger Stadium, and it’s not Neyland.
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My take: Here again, Kiffin is showing reverence for college football’s great environments. Unprompted, he gave a hat tip to LSU. I think he truly savored that return to Knoxville. He compared it to being in “The Gladiator” movie and 100,000 people turning on one person. Vols fans littered the field with debris, and Kiffin got hit by a yellow golf ball, as his team prevailed, 31-26. Perhaps he’d like to coach in environments like that more often, but as the home team.
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My take: Kiffin is the aptly described “Portal King,” but here he is suggesting it would be better to sign top recruiting classes every year and build more with high school prospects while using the portal as an assist rather than a backbone. He’d have a better chance of signing top-five classes at a place like LSU or Florida.
Tread carefully, though: Kiffin’s ability to identify and assemble transfer talent and build a strong culture within those teams has become one of his super skills. Is it really wise to pivot away from that? Nick Saban and now Smart showed the path of success via high school recruiting, but other programs have signed plenty of four- and five-star recruits without championship results. Maybe, Kiffin should keep zigging to Smart’s zag and stay atop the “Portal King” throne.
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“Well, I didn’t listen to him very well. I followed two Hall of Fame coaches in Phillip Fulmer and Pete Carroll. Not smart. So, you see how USC ended.”
My take: Consider the late Monte Kiffin’s advice to his son: Keep an eye out for premier jobs, but don’t try to replace a legend. As Kiffin said to me, he didn’t follow that advice at either Tennessee or USC. By going to LSU or Florida, Kiffin could jump to a great job but replace a fired coach, not a legend. Florida’s been down for several years. It aches for a savior. LSU wasn’t all that down under Brian Kelly, but unlike his three predecessors, Kelly failed to produce a national championship, and he didn’t mesh with the natives. Taking either the LSU or Florida jobs would align with Monte’s advice.
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“Most of my rock bottoms were my own fault, my own self-destruction, but I now see that having to rebuild that in my personal life and in my career — the USC firing, I go through three years of Alabama, I go to FAU, I go through all that rebuilding — in that process, I really got to actually figure myself out and learn myself, because I had to build it.”
My take: I can see where you might read this as favoring Ole Miss, because Kiffin built up the program, and he also rebuilt his family life in Oxford. So, why sacrifice that momentum and risk his happiness by leaving?
Here’s an alternate way to look at it: Kiffin is saying he had to be torn down and forced to rebuild to become a better version of himself. Now that he believes he’s become a higher-functioning version of himself, perhaps he might want to see what that iteration of Kiffin could achieve at a program like LSU or Florida.
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“Now, I just want to be a really good neighbor, dad, brother, coworker, boss. I look at life completely different, and a lot of that had to do with growth and my personal growth, losing my dad, seeing his legacy. He’s someone who had both those — championships and treated people well — and just realizing which one is a lot more important.”
My take: Here again, I could see where you might interpret this quote as a point in Mississippi’s favor. But, if Kiffin still craved a statue, wouldn’t that be the ultimate point for Ole Miss? If Kiffin stays in Oxford, keeps winning like he has and either departs years from now on favorable terms or retires from Ole Miss, he’d get a statue. If he doesn’t care about statues and just wants to be a decent dude who treats people well, he can do that at LSU or Florida.
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“I’d say that right there. I’d say ‘maybe’ to a lot of things, like when you say, ‘People say Ole Miss has peaked. That’s the best it’s going to be.’ Maybe, maybe not. Because, I don’t know. I don’t know that. I could give you coach-speak and say, ‘Oh, no, there’s no way. We’ll always have a roster like that.’ That’s what coaches do. They just tell you that, because that’s what we’re supposed to do, but I don’t know. I don’t know.”
My take: Kiffin likes the parable of the Chinese farmer who says “maybe” to basically everything while the farmer lets it play out, so “maybe” there’s nothing to interpret here except Kiffin wanted to share with me that he enjoys this parable.
But, it’s interesting that when Kiffin had a chance to say before this season he hadn’t hit his ceiling at Ole Miss, he didn’t say so. Instead, he talked about a parable. Interestingly, as it turns out, Kiffin hadn’t hit his ceiling at Ole Miss. A playoff bid would be new heights.
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“So, I guess I don’t have a full answer, because you were probably thinking more of coaching. I’m thinking more of the legacy that you leave with the people you connect with and the ability to help them through things.”
My take: Kiffin is giving himself permission to leave Ole Miss. He’s considering his dad’s life and telling himself he wants his legacy to be that of someone who made a positive impact on people and helped people. There’s no reason he must stay in Mississippi to achieve that. He’d come into contact with more people by uprooting to LSU or Florida.
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I’ll leave you with one more, and you can take this one however you like.
In April, while Kiffin and I were discussing his quest to be a higher version of himself and the epiphany he’s found in Mississippi, I asked whether he feels his inner nature calling to him.
Has he thought about applying this fresh outlook he says he’s achieved, this better version of himself, to his old way of life?
“Thought about that a lot,” he said. “You know what I tell myself? How did that work?”
“This isn’t just about a job,” he added. “Obviously, this is much bigger. This is about just daily life. Hey, it’s OK to slow down. It’s OK to be completely present.”
He can slow down and remain in the present in Oxford and savor the brilliance of this Ole Miss ascent he’s galvanized. Or, he can leave and form a new present at LSU or Florida.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.