The Lane Kiffin saga appears set to come to an end later this week, and it looks like he’ll be moving from Ole Miss — a decision FOX Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt doesn’t agree with.
On the latest episode of “The Joel Klatt Show,” he shared that he heard LSU is in the lead for the Kiffin sweepstakes.
“I’ve been all over the map and partly because the information has been all over the map,” Klatt said. “There have been moments when I thought he’s definitely going to stay at Miss. There’s been moments [when] I have been told he’s definitely going to Florida. Now, there [have] been moments that I’ve been told he’s definitely going to LSU.
“That’s kind of where the information stands. Pretty reliable that LSU is the front-runner. Obviously, this is coming to a head because they’re announcing when the decision is going to be made.”
As Klatt alluded to, there have been several developments over the last month surrounding Kiffin’s coaching future. Both LSU and Florida fired their respective head coaches in October, with Kiffin emerging as a top candidate for both jobs. Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter also said around the time of those firings that the school was seeking to give Kiffin a Curt Cignetti-like extension, with the Indiana coach receiving a contract that made him the third-highest-paid coach in the nation in October.
Does Lane Kiffin need to leave Ole Miss to win a national championship? 🤔
During Ole Miss’ bye this past week, the rumors about Kiffin’s future seemed to hit a boiling point. Multiple reports surfaced about his family taking trips to both Florida’s and LSU’s campuses. A report from Yahoo Sports on Saturday said that LSU was preparing to offer Kiffin a seven-year deal with a total value of at least $90 million.
Following a week full of rumors, Carter issued a statement that read a resolution on Kiffin’s future would come after Ole Miss’ matchup against Mississippi State on Friday.
At the backdrop of all of this is that Ole Miss appears set to make the College Football Playoff. It’s 10-1 entering Friday’s game and was ranked sixth in the most recent CFP poll. The Rebels might also play in the SEC Championship Game.
With Kiffin appearing to be on the precipice of leaving a CFP contender at the height of their season, Klatt questioned just how effective he’ll be at his next job.
“Your credibility is your currency as a coach,” he said. “How does Lane Kiffin leave Ole Miss in the middle of a playoff run and have any credibility at his next place? I don’t think that he would. We can sit here and lament the calendar and realize that like, this is not a great position for Lane to be in. I totally agree with that, but it’s also still up to him.
“If you say yes to everything, how can you be committed to anything?”
Kiffin leaving Ole Miss for another job would be an unprecedented move in the CFP era. Kalen DeBoer is the only coach to leave for another program immediately after taking his team to the CFP, but even he left Washington for Alabama following the national championship.
As Ole Miss seemingly controls its own path to the CFP, Klatt wondered why Kiffin thinks he has to make the jump in order to win a national championship.
“I don’t think he has to go anywhere to find success,” Klatt said. “This is not like it used to be. It used to be like, LSU would come open, and you’re like, ‘I got to go there if I want to win at the top end.’ But guess what? The proof that you don’t have to do that is Lane at Ole Miss. He is the proof that you don’t have to do that. He is winning at the top end at Ole Miss. He doesn’t have to leave.
“Curt Cignetti is proving that at Indiana. He’s No. 2 in the country. No. 2 and could win a national championship this year. Joey McGuire is proving that at Texas Tech. You don’t have to go there. You can win in this era. In the modern era of college football, the fit is more important than the logo on your hat because you can win if you’ve got the support, which they do at Old Miss. This is not a money thing.”
Joel Klatt weighs in on saga between Lane Kiffin & Ole Miss: ‘It’s going to be harder to stay the longer this goes’
To Klatt’s point, Kiffin has helped Ole Miss become a CFP contender since he became its head coach in 2020. He has gone 54-19 in his six seasons at the helm as it just missed the CFP in 2024. It finished ranked in the top 12 in two of Kiffin’s other first five seasons at Ole Miss.
While the Rebels have thrived under Kiffin, LSU hasn’t had the same success. LSU is set to finish with a worse record than Ole Miss for the fourth time in the past five seasons, with Brian Kelly getting fired as the Tigers’ head coach after losing another big game to Texas A&M in October.
On top of the worries Klatt has about Ole Miss and Kiffin’s reputation by the impending move, he’s just as worried about the precedent this might set in college football.
“I am concerned for what that would mean for college football because this would be like a car accident of epic proportions,” Klatt said. “If he were to leave and then not coach the CFP, he would be destroying the Ole Miss football team. Those kids committed to him as much as they committed to Ole Miss. Then they committed to each other to achieve something great. They will not excel in the playoffs without him as their playcaller.
“If he leaves them, it’s not just the calendar’s fault because he has agency. He has agency, and he doesn’t have to leave.”
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