Dan WetzelNov 19, 2025, 07:00 AM ETCloseDan Wetzel is a senior writer focused on investigative reporting, news analysis and feature storytelling.
Paul Finebaum: Lane Kiffin not stopping the Florida speculation (0:44)Paul Finebaum offers his take on whether Lane Kiffin wants to leave Ole Miss for Florida. (0:44)
He’ll always have remorse if he decides to go take another job — Florida or LSU — right on the verge of leading a likely 11-1 Rebels team into the College Football Playoff. He’ll never live down the fact he turned his back on a locker room ready to fight with him for a national title — all for the perceived greener grass of Gainesville or Baton Rouge.
This has nothing to do with what job offers more advantages or money or proximity to talent. It has nothing to do with the long term.
Timing is everything in life. Sometimes for the positive, sometimes not. That’s how it works. Adults deal with it.
Kiffin, 50, knows drama and setbacks. USC fired him at an airport. Nick Saban bounced him as an Alabama assistant just days before a national title game, convinced he was too focused on his next job as the coach at Florida Atlantic. Al Davis dumped him from the Oakland Raiders and declared he had been “conned” into hiring him in the first place.
“The whole good old days … I’m in them right now,” Kiffin said Saturday after defeating, coincidentally, Florida. “I just think people don’t realize when they’re in them. And then they get older and they say, ‘Remember that it was great back then?’ You know, I’m just fortunate to be in them.”
Ole Miss is 10-1 heading into next week’s season finale against Mississippi State. The Rebels are primed to host a first-round playoff game, which would arguably be the biggest sporting event in the history of the state. That alone is a seminal moment for a school that has granted its coach every wish it could.
His success has made him a coveted coaching candidate, with two big-time programs seemingly willing to do anything to get him — including ignoring the fact that they are hiring a guy who would walk out on the eve of the postseason.
In a perfect world, this decision would take place after the Ole Miss season. That isn’t how the calendar works, though. UF and LSU need a coach. Returning talent needs to be convinced to stay. Recruits need to be identified.
Ole Miss’ first-round playoff game would occur on Dec. 19 or 20. Win, as Ole Miss would be favored to do, and the quarterfinals are on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day.
For Kiffin, it’s either stay or go. There is no time to do both. Pledge your allegiance to Ole Miss or walk out and start anew. The former might cost him an opportunity that he always wanted. The latter, however, would define him.
That said, members of Kiffin’s family — including ex-wife Layla and son Knox, a high school sophomore — visited Gainesville and Baton Rouge in recent days, ESPN and others reported. Kiffin says Ole Miss hasn’t given him an ultimatum timeline, but there is no time like the present to make a decision.
This has nothing to do with the quality of the opportunity at LSU or Florida. Both schools offer immense resources, commitment and potential. Both sit in talent-rich states. Both have advantages that Ole Miss can’t match, although here in the NIL/portal/revenue share era, the gap has closed.
Not in these circumstances, though. Not at this time. Not with a team this good, at a school this supportive, in a season this magical.
Paul Finebaum: Lane Kiffin not stopping the Florida speculation (0:44)Paul Finebaum offers his take on whether Lane Kiffin wants to leave Ole Miss for Florida. (0:44)
CloseDan Wetzel is a senior writer focused on investigative reporting, news analysis and feature storytelling.
Lane Kiffin will always regret it if he quits on his Ole Miss team.
Kiffin may be free to walk from the Rebels, but everyone else is free to judge him if he does.
“We’re having a blast,” Kiffin said Tuesday on “The Pat McAfee Show.” Adding, “I love it here.”
In different circumstances, he could go; maybe he even should go.
Certainly not without causing everyone to wonder if Al Davis was right all along.
Paul Finebaum offers his take on whether Lane Kiffin wants to leave Ole Miss for Florida. (0:44)
The high school signing period begins on Dec. 3. The transfer portal opens on Jan. 2.
The coach who quit on a playoff team? It’s unthinkable.