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Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Tyler Lauletta

ESPN Writer Who Profiled Lane Kiffin Believes He'd Only Leave Ole Miss for One Job

Lane Kiffin has held some high-profile gigs in the college football world, with head coaching stints at Tennessee, USC and FAU and a run as Alabama’s offensive coordinator before landing in his current role leading Ole Miss.

Kiffin is 48–18 leading the Rebels, and has them 4–0 and ranked No. 13 in the country ahead of this weekend’s big matchup against No. 4 LSU. At just 50 years old, Kiffin could understandably be a candidate for any top tier college coaching job that becomes available, but ESPN’s Ryan McGee, who recently profiled Kiffin for E:60, believes there are only one or two jobs that would make him consider leaving Ole Miss.

“I think he probably has one, maybe two jobs in his mind that he would really wrestle with if they came open. And one of them’s probably going to come open, and one of them probably isn’t, and he’ll have to wrestle with it,” McGee told the radio show McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning. “He’s really happy, and I don’t know if he wants to mess with that.”

McGee noted that the one job that will likely be available was the head coaching gig at Florida, where Billy Napier is on the hot seat after a 1–3 start for the Gators. Kiffin has some ties to the job from a previous marriage.

As for the real test of Kiffin’s loyalty, that would come from an offer from the Crimson Tide.

“I think Alabama is the one. If Alabama calls, I don’t care who you are, you return the call,” McGee said. “But I don’t know. He seems really, really happy. We’re all in about the same age group, and I don’t know if you mess with that.”

As McGee points out, Kiffin seems pretty happy with his current situation, and could decide to continue building at Ole Miss and see how far he can take the program. At the same time, Alabama’s first coach of the post-Saban era, Kalen DeBoer, is off to a somewhat rocky start to year two in Tuscaloosa.

Whatever the future holds, expect Kiffin to be on the sidelines somewhere on Saturdays for years to come.


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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ESPN Writer Who Profiled Lane Kiffin Believes He'd Only Leave Ole Miss for One Job.

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