It is still October and this year’s college football's coaching carousel already looks primed to be one of the craziest we've seen in the sport. Lane Kiffin is in a good situation at Mississippi, with the Rebels (6–1) firmly in the mix to reach the College Football Playoff for the first time. And yet, Kiffin's name has been bandied about for some of the top-tier jobs that are open on the market—namely, the fresh opening at Florida.
The Gators fired embattled coach Billy Napier after UF's 3–4 start to the season. While Ole Miss has been the superior program for years—in large part due to Kiffin's work in Oxford, Miss.—Florida has a national championship pedigree, fertile recruiting grounds and the potential resources to head back to the top of the sport, if they can only nail a coaching hire for the first time since Urban Meyer came to Gainesville from Utah ahead of the 2005 season.
Kiffin flirted with leaving Ole Miss for Auburn in 2023, ultimately opting to stay with the Rebels (with a lucrative contract extension to boot). Now, with Florida rumors abound, he tells ESPN's Molly McGrath that he will address them head-on with his team, rather than let them linger in the background as a distraction with a CFP trip on the line.
From a Friday afternoon SportsCenter hit:
“Lane Kiffin told me he usually doesn’t address those kind of coaching rumors in-season, because there’s so much more football to play, and there’s so many bigger things to focus on. But he’s actually going to do things differently today in their team meeting. He is going to address those rumors with his players,” McGrath said. “He’s going to talk to them about it and say, ‘Hey, this is what happens when you win. This is a compliment to our players, our staff and our entire program.’ He wants to talk to his players about it because there’s so many new guys on their team this year that haven’t dealt with it before.”
Lane Kiffin's connections to the Florida job
Of course, McGrath's report doesn't include a denial that Kiffin will eventually discuss the Florida job, and the ESPN reporter explained the connection that Kiffin has to the Gators program and the city of Gainesville.
“When I pressed him about the leverage that these job openings kind of create for him, he said, ‘I’m never going to make decisions based on money, I’m going to make decisions based on everyday happiness.’ And you can tell he’s really trying to prioritize his family and his kids in this one,” McGrath continued. “But I will say though, Kiffin really idolizes legendary Gators' former legendary coach Steve Spurrier. And when I covered Ole Miss’s game at Florida last year, Kiffin pulled me aside and said 'This is a really special place for me and my family.' It’s where he had his first date with his children’s mother, so [Gainesville] is a nostalgic place for the Kiffin family. So perhaps that will play a role into it."
Much has been made about Kiffin's comfort in Oxford, where his eldest daughter Landry is a student. Layla Kiffin, the coach's ex-wife with whom he's reconciled, is a former Gainesville resident and Florida alumna, potentially adding to the job's draw.
If the Rebels have meaningful football to play well into December, however, we may not know whether he's willing to make that jump for a few months.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as How Lane Kiffin Plans to Address Persistent Florida Rumors With Ole Miss Players.