By the time you read this, Lane Kiffin – former wunderkind Oakland Raiders coach, former Tennessee coach until he quit after a year causing students to riot, former USC coach until he was sacked on the tarmac at LAX – may have a new job.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s kinda his thing.<\/p>\n
Kiffin has already lived multiple football lives; taking over an NFL team out of nowhere when he was 31, and a controversial figure with an undeniably gifted offensive mind, who has twice had to build his way up to the top of college football.<\/p>\n
Now aged 50, Kiffin finds himself at the centre of one of the most bizarre coaching sagas in the sport\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Because he is currently leading the University of Mississippi, or Ole Miss, to one of their greatest ever seasons.<\/p>\n
And yet he\u2019s likely to leave before it finishes.<\/p>\n
Watch an average 6 games per week and every game of the NFL Postseason, LIVE with ESPN on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1<\/a>.<\/p>\n Perennial underachievers in the mighty Southeastern Conference (SEC) despite a passionate fanbase with plenty of wealthy boosters, the Rebels are finally set to return to the sport\u2019s biggest stage, earning a place in the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n Yet the conversation around Ole Miss right now isn\u2019t about Ole Miss. It\u2019s about Kiffin. And about whether he\u2019ll be coaching them next year… or, indeed, next week.<\/p>\n Eagles booed off the field by own fans | 01:02<\/p>\n Kiffin, currently in his fifth head coaching job in 17 years, is a large fan of upward mobility. And it\u2019s been quite clear for several years he saw Ole Miss as a stepping stone towards a (theoretically) bigger SEC job.<\/p>\n There are jobs where you can win the national championship, and Ole Miss hasn\u2019t typically been one of them – they\u2019re without a title since racial integration.<\/p>\n And so Kiffin, a media-friendly coach who enjoys social media as much as anyone, has loomed through several coaching cycles as a candidate to be hired up the pecking order.<\/p>\n But Kiffin has built his case for a bigger and better job by making Ole Miss a bigger and better job. He has done brilliantly through the modern NIL (name, image and likeness) age where players can be paid above the table and can transfer yearly, causing rosters to undergo massive change every year.<\/p>\n Head coach Lane Kiffin of the Mississippi Rebels reacts before the game against the Florida Gators at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on November 15, 2025 in Oxford, Mississippi. Justin Ford\/Getty Images\/AFP (Photo by Justin Ford \/ GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA \/ Getty Images via AFP)Source: AFP<\/p>\n He\u2019s done so well that he\u2019s made Ole Miss a school where, if you squint, you could see them winning a national title.<\/p>\n Heading into this weekend they ranked 8th in the ESPN SP+ rankings, an all-encompassing advanced stat, and in a very even season they could absolutely go on a playoff run.<\/p>\n And yet Kiffin is heavily considering leaving – with reports he\u2019s holding a team meeting on Sunday morning (US time)<\/a> – for a seven-year deal at LSU, a more successful school historically.<\/p>\n But LSU is also a school that just sacked a high-priced coach, who they poached from powerhouse Notre Dame, and a school that\u2019s effectively being run by the state\u2019s governor<\/a>.<\/p>\n To say LSU is a messy environment would be an understatement. And they\u2019d be paying Kiffin about as much to coach there. But they\u2019ve won multiple national titles this century, most notably with a Joe Burrow-led offensive powerhouse earlier this decade, and so they\u2019re viewed as a better job.<\/p>\n Admittedly, those national titles weren\u2019t won in the new NIL environment, so it remains to be seen over the next decade whether LSU is that much better of a job than Ole Miss. The results of the past few years would suggest not.<\/p>\n Generally speaking this move would not be completely ridiculous, but the timing could not be worse, with the Kiffin speculation reaching fever pitch over the last week heading into the state\u2019s rivalry game between Ole Miss and Mississippi State – the Egg Bowl.<\/p>\n Ole Miss wanted a decision from Kiffin before the game, but didn\u2019t get it. And now the entire saga has turned into a bizarre media narrative war with the sport\u2019s main broadcaster, ESPN, effectively on Kiffin\u2019s side.<\/p>\n Marty Smith of the SEC Network interviews head coach Lane Kiffin of the Mississippi Rebels before the game against the Mississippi State Bulldogs at Davis Wade Stadium on November 28, 2025 in Starkville, Mississippi. Justin Ford\/Getty Images\/AFP (Photo by Justin Ford \/ GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA \/ Getty Images via AFP)Source: AFP<\/p>\n Kiffin, like a lot of college football\u2019s big-name coaches, is represented by super agent Jimmy Sexton. Sexton also represents Nick Saban, the legendary Alabama coach who recently retired.<\/p>\n So it was notable when Saban, along with most other ESPN hosts, spoke about the Kiffin situation on traditional Saturday morning pre-game show College Gameday – and presented the situation in the most positive light possible for Kiffin.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a Lane Kiffin conundrum. This is a college football conundrum that we need some leadership to step up and change the rules on how this gets done,\u201d Saban said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the NFL, you can\u2019t leave until your team until you\u2019ve finished playing. You can\u2019t talk to another coach in the regular season.\u201d<\/p>\n Saban blames the system itself. And, to be fair, the system sucks.<\/p>\n Because there is no true governing body for the sport, nobody has control of the calendar, meaning players and coaches are able to leave their teams mid-season.<\/p>\n It creates chaos and inevitably forces teams to make moves earlier and earlier – like the case of James Franklin, who was coaching No.3-ranked Penn State in a clash of the titans, double overtime battle against No.6 Oregon in late September… and by late November had first been sacked, and then hired to coach Virginia Tech.<\/p>\n So yes, the schools that want to hire Kiffin are asking him to make a move earlier than they should. In an ideal world, they would not be trying to tempt him (or any other playoff-bound coach) away before the playoffs are even finalised.<\/p>\n But this isn\u2019t something that is happening to Kiffin. It is happening because of Kiffin.<\/p>\n He has decided to try and find a different job, and could easily just re-sign with Ole Miss if that\u2019s his true intention. Other in-demand coaches, like Indiana\u2019s Curt Cignetti (who has done an even better job turning a perennial struggler into a title contender than Kiffin), have rejected major interest from the market to stick around this year alone.<\/p>\n Heck, Kiffin could\u2019ve just done this more quietly. But he\u2019s not a quiet guy.<\/p>\n And his agent has quite clearly leveraged Kiffin\u2019s celebrity, and the Ole Miss situation, to try and get his client a larger contract at whichever job he takes for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n The only winner in this entire saga will be Kiffin\u2019s bank account.<\/p>\n Mississippi head coach Lane Kiffin reacts after a play as his players leave the field during the second half of an NCAA college football game against Mississippi State, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025, in Starkville, Miss. (AP Photo\/Rogelio V. Solis)Source: AP<\/p>\n It\u2019s the fact that the sport\u2019s broadcasters have spent the last two weeks trying to position Kiffin as blameless, and a victim of the situation, that has made things so much worse.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s time to seriously talk about the messaging apparatus Jimmy Sexton and (his agency) CAA have created with Nick Saban, ESPN, and a perch of friendly reporters,\u201d Washington Post and Yahoo columnist Steven Godfrey wrote last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is getting disgusting.\u201d<\/p>\n While Kiffin led Ole Miss to victory in the Egg Bowl, his relationship with local media was typified by a bizarre post-game incident where he confronted a journalist who he felt had insulted him.<\/p>\n Reporter Ben Garrett had referenced a Ludacris lyric – \u201ccan\u2019t turn a hoe into a housewife; hoes don\u2019t act right\u201d – when discussing Kiffin\u2019s track record of changing jobs constantly.<\/p>\n Certainly a little ruder and more direct than is ideal, and not something we\u2019d say about a sportsperson we cover, even if in context it\u2019s a pop culture reference.<\/p>\n Whether Kiffin understood the context or not he got in Garrett\u2019s face post-game and beckoned him inside the team\u2019s locker room.<\/p>\n \u201cYou wanna walk in here and call me a hoe? We\u2019ll see how it goes,\u201d Kiffin quipped.<\/p>\n As Garrett later explained on his podcast: \u201cI used the metaphor clunkily.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was more about the disloyalty of the last couple of weeks, including the brazen moves of sending family members on information-gathering missions to Baton Rouge (LSU) and Gainesville (University of Florida, another school Kiffin has considered coaching), and then have the gall to say, \u2018How dare you ask about it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n It was a notable incident not just for its absurdity but because Kiffin has otherwise had the mainstream college football media firmly on his side, even as it became more apparent he was likely to leave.<\/p>\n Mississippi head coach Lane Kiffin, left, and Florida interim head coach Billy Gonzales shake hands prior to the start of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025, in Oxford, Miss. (AP Photo\/Rogelio V. Solis)Source: AP<\/p>\n