Lane Kiffin’s future will likely come down to a Saturday decision that could shake the SEC to its core.
The Rebels’ head coach said he plans to decide Saturday whether he will stay in Oxford or leave for another job — presumably LSU, which is aggressively pushing to pry him away from its SEC rival.
FOX Sports’ Bruce Feldman reported Saturday morning that LSU has offered Kiffin a seven-year deal worth roughly $100 million, a contract that would make him one of the highest-paid coaches in the sport.
“Expect for him to announce a decision later today,” Feldman said, adding that LSU sources he spoke with are “very confident he is going to come to Baton Rouge and accept the Tigers job.”
Feldman said the attraction for Kiffin is obvious: LSU is a program with three national titles under three different coaches in the last 20 years and the recruiting power that can go “toe to toe with the Georgias and Alabamas” at the top of the SEC. Still, Feldman cautioned that this is Kiffin, and “you never really know exactly what he’s going to do until he does it.”
The timing is quite dramatic for Ole Miss (11-1, 7-1 SEC), which strengthened its College Football Playoff hopes Friday with a 38-19 Egg Bowl win over Mississippi State at Davis Wade Stadium. The Rebels will now wait to learn whether they will reach next week’s SEC Championship Game in Atlanta, but their postseason path could be overshadowed by uncertainty around their head coach.
On FOX’s “Big Noon Kickoff,“ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt delivered a pointed message at Kiffin.
Klatt argued that while the coaching calendar is “broken” and often forces decisions during the season, it doesn’t excuse the potential fallout. “Your currency as a coach is your credibility,” Klatt said. “If he makes this move, I just wonder going forward, will he have that credibility in front of his team and in recruiting?”
Klatt added that opposing coaches wouldn’t hesitate to use Kiffin’s indecision as a recruiting tool.
“If I was an opposing coach… I would sit in a recruit’s living room and say, ‘Why would you commit to this guy if he doesn’t know if he’s committed to you?’ That’s a problem.”
Klatt also pushed back on the argument that Kiffin must leave for LSU to compete for a national championship. “That notion is false,” he said. “In modern college football, you can build a winner basically anywhere.”
Klatt closed with perhaps his strongest line of the morning.
“You want to win a national championship? Then look in the mirror, because it’s right in front of you right now at Ole Miss.”
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