With Friday’s win in the Egg Bowl, Mississippi clinched its first 11-win season in program history, and is a near-certainty to make the College Football Playoff. Whether coach Lane Kiffin will be in Oxford, Miss., for the postseason remains an open question.
For weeks, Kiffin has been atop the wishlists for both Florida and LSU. The Gators are now out of the running, Sports Illustrated’s Bryan Fischer and Pat Forde report, despite a “significant offer” from the program. He is now down to remaining with the Rebels or taking over a Tigers program that has won national championships under three of its four most recent coaches.
Following Ole Miss’s 38–19 win in Starkville, Miss., Kiffin told ESPN’s Taylor McGregor that he’s “got a lot of praying to do to figure that out tomorrow,” signaling that a decision is coming. Along with that prayer, he’ll be making calls to a pair of football deities for whom he previously worked: Nick Saban and Pete Carroll.
"I miss my dad to be honest, I really missed him this week,” Kiffin said. “So my two calls would be the closet to that for advice from what my dad would say to do on these things, Coach Carroll and Coach Saban.”
Kiffin is the son of legendary defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, a two-time national champion as the DC of Nebraska and Super Bowl champion with the 2002–03 Buccaneers. He died last July at 84.
The younger Kiffin coached under Carroll at USC from 2001 to ‘06, before landing the head coaching job with the Oakland Raiders. He later worked under Saban at Alabama from 2014 to ‘16, resurrecting his head coaching career after flaming out in his own turn leading the Trojans.
Saban, a former coach at LSU, has spoken at length about the Kiffin situation in his current role as ESPN analyst. During a recent appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, he expressed empathy about the potential that Kiffin will have to leave a CFP run on the table with Ole Miss if he chooses to head to LSU. He did not, however, given much in the way of what he would do in Kiffin’s shoes, however.
“I’ve been in a few situations like this,” Saban told McAfee. “… I think everybody has to manage their situation relative to where their heart is and what they feel. In Lane’s situation, every coach wants to coach their team. It is really, really hard to up and leave your team. The calendar should be set up so every coach can finish the season with his team. It’s good for the players and it’s good for the team.”
Saban is the greatest college coach of the last 25 years and Carroll is on the short list for that honor. It is about as good a pair of mentors that someone can have as he tries to make this decision.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Lane Kiffin Will Seek Advice From Two Legendary Mentors About LSU, Ole Miss Decision.
