Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football, where the toll of a rare disappointing season came bubbling up for Kansas State’s Chris Klieman on Saturday. First Quarter: Nothing in the CFP Is Settled.
Second Quarter: A Defining Week for Lane Kiffin
If this is the most uncomfortable work week in the melodramatic career of Lane Kiffin (11), well, he has himself to thank for it. He’s talented enough as a coach to have three Southeastern Conference schools prostrating themselves at his feet, and unwise enough to make it as public and messy as possible.
When Kiffin’s family members boarded flights last week for both LSU and Florida, that was guaranteed to become breaking news. And once that happened, one of the greatest seasons in Mississippi (12) history became enveloped in the things coaches say they hate: outside noise, distractions, fan backlash, intense media coverage.
Then again, maybe Kiffin doesn’t hate those things. His track record suggests that he craves chaos, or at least the attention that chaos invites. In his mind, turning the towering regional importance of Egg Bowl week into his own sideshow might be his dream scenario.
But it also makes Ole Miss’s noon ET Friday game against bitter rival Mississippi State the mother of all must-win games.
Rebels fans might never forgive Kiffin if he bolts on the team before coaching them in the College Football Playoff. But they’ll absolutely never forgive him if he manages to lose this game, imperil the school’s first playoff bid and then leave.
As stated on last week’s podcast, Kiffin needs to finish out this season at Ole Miss. No matter when it ends. And he needs to coach the team with the same level of commitment that he had in going 10–1 to this point.
We’re all in this together is the most fundamental message coaches impart to their teams. And they impart it all year, from the early morning winter workouts of January through spring practice through the heat of summer drills. Everything is done for the good of the team. It will pay off in the end. Trust. Believe. Together.
Kiffin is toeing the line on tossing all that in the garbage. He’s flirting with the ultimate coach-speak hypocrisy. If he quits on this Ole Miss team, it will be a defining moment in his career—and not a flattering one. Becoming one of the richest coaches in history, which appears to be the outcome of this no matter where he goes, won’t buy a reputation cleansing.
But even before Decision Day 2025, Kiffin has to win this year’s Egg Bowl. He has to take his team on the road into a cauldron of cowbells and defeat a desperate opponent that needs to win for bowl eligibility. Mississippi State isn’t very good, but it did have Texas down 17 points in the fourth quarter in Starkville, Miss., a month ago.
Prediction: The Kiffin decision—whatever it is—won’t hold until Saturday. We’ll see if it even holds until mid-afternoon Friday, when he’s walking out of Davis Wade Stadium as either the coach who secured a historic playoff bid for Ole Miss or ignominiously blew it.
Meanwhile, The Carousel Spins—or Stops—Elsewhere
The biggest non-news Sunday was the decision by Florida State to hold onto Mike Norvell (13) for another season. Once the Seminoles passed on a midseason firing, this was the expected outcome. But it also speaks volumes about the humility that has been forced upon the school over the last two seasons.
While going 13–0 in 2023, Florida State characterized itself as every bit as good as the top-level programs in the SEC and Big Ten—and too good for the masses in the ACC. National titles were the standard, and if chasing them necessitated a change in conference affiliation, so be it. The Seminoles (and Clemson) temporarily settled for unequal revenue distribution, granting them Most Favored Nation status within the ACC.
Meanwhile, the program went into stunning, accelerated collapse. Since winning that ACC title, Florida State is 7–17, 0–9 away from Tallahassee and just 3–13 in its supposedly inferior league. Norvell was compelled to make major staff changes after last season’s 2–10 train wreck, which have yielded only incremental improvement.
Yet, in the end, overpaying to retain Norvell when Alabama inquired about him in 2023 has locked Florida State into keeping him longer than he’s merited. These are the worst back-to-back seasons at Florida State since Darrell Mudra went 4–18 in 1974–75, and that earned Mudra a pink slip. Norvell stays on because his $60 million buyout is simply out of reach.
Florida State standing by Norvell says the school cannot put its money where its mouth is. Running it back in 2026 is an admission that the Seminoles aren’t who they said they were, and don’t have a means of getting there yet.
Florida State keeping Norvell, Wisconsin (14) keeping Luke Fickell, Maryland (15) keeping Mike Locksley and Baylor (16) keeping Dave Aranda are clear signs that money is not limitless everywhere. The schools are willing to ride a bit further with disappointing coaches because replacing them would cost a fortune, and because the supply of high-level replacements might not equal the demand of a crowded hiring market.
The next big decision on that front might be Kentucky (17) and Mark Stoops. His buyout is roughly $38 million at a school that currently is believed to have the most expensive basketball roster in the country. If hoops is the priority—and it always has been at Kentucky—then sticking it out with Stoops might be the wisest fiscal alternative.
But he’s made it hard on himself.
A three-game winning streak raised Kentucky’s record to 5–5, and finishing with takedowns of Vanderbilt and Louisville would have completely flipped the feeling of this season. But then the Wildcats were destroyed by Vandy, 45–17, and suddenly nobody feels that great about beating two teams that fired their coaches (Auburn and Florida) and Tennessee Tech.
Stoops is arguably the best football coach in Kentucky history, but inarguably in decline. His record the last four seasons is 23–25, and 9–14 over the last two. A single game won’t drive any long-term decisions on Stoops, but the rivalry matchup with tailspinning Louisville will have an impact on the fans’ feelings heading into 2026.
Out West, the impact of a rivalry flop registered on the Richter scale at California (18). After the favored Golden Bears flopped badly in a three-touchdown loss to Stanford, nine-year coach Justin Wilcox was fired. His tenure was a long study in mediocrity, with a 48–55 overall record and zero winning records in conference play—either the Pac-12 or the ACC. There were several good wins, but even more bad losses that led to first-year general manager Ron Rivera pulling the plug.
On the very same day Wilcox was fired, so was Chip Kelly (19) as offensive coordinator by the Las Vegas Raiders. This creates some intrigue, perhaps not only at Cal but at other programs with openings. (Oregon State comes quickly to mind, but what about Oklahoma State and Arkansas if they’re not too far down the road with other candidates?)
There are questions to be answered: Does Kelly want to be a college head coach again? He left the job at UCLA to call plays (and win a national championship) at Ohio State, then went back to the pros as an OC. Would he do well in a program with a general manager that handled all the roster and payroll stuff he didn’t want to handle, letting him focus on football? Or would he prefer another offensive coordinator gig? Or, at age 61, is he ready for some time off?
Kelly took longer to get it going at UCLA than expected, going 10–21 his first three years, but the last three were 25–13—results the Bruins would love right now. His 46–7 record at Oregon remains one of the best runs of this century. And his play-calling in Ohio State’s playoff run was brilliant.
The Elite Coach Who Is Unavailable
The happiest administrator during this high-stakes, high-profile hiring season is Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens. His rockstar coach, Dan Lanning (20), is the anti-Kiffin.
He’s 45–7 with the Ducks, still in his 30s, and looks like an inevitable national championship winner. He’s also very publicly not interested in any other jobs.
“I guess ultimately people realize at this point that I’m not interested in being anywhere else, like I’ve said for a long time,” Lanning said after beating USC Saturday. “As long as I win, I get the opportunity to be here. That’s on me, right? So, this is where I’ll be as long as I do that. My situation’s so good that I feel really comfortable saying that.
“I love this place, and more than that, I love the commitment that they’ve given to me. Somebody gave me this opportunity. Not everybody gets that. I can’t speak for anybody else’s situation when it comes to that. So, probably tells you how special Oregon is. And certainly, how special I feel getting to be here and getting to coach here. What a privilege that is for me. That’s something I’ll never take for granted, and I want to be able to see it through.”
There are plenty of reasons why Lanning should want to stay at Oregon. Among them: a private compensation deal with Nike founder and Ducks patriarch Phil Knight that makes him even harder to poach. With that in place, it seems highly unlikely that any college program could pull Lanning out of Eugene—even with jobs like LSU, Florida and Penn State open.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Forde-Yard Dash: Inside Lane Kiffin’s High-Stakes Week and Other Carousel Implications.
