all the hope<\/a> that had been built over the past two weeks suddenly evaporated into a chilly weekend like a candle snuffed out after everybody\u2019s gone home and the Thanksgiving dinner table has been cleared.<\/p>\nBecause once you fall in love with the idea of Lane Kiffin, everybody else feels like eating at Waffle House when you\u2019d already imagined dinner at Bern\u2019s Steak House.<\/p>\n
Nothing against Louisville\u2019s Jeff Brohm, Georgia Tech\u2019s Brent Key, Washington\u2019s Jedd Fisch, Tulane\u2019s Jon Sumrall or any of the others \u2014 all good coaches, maybe even great. But after the fan base convinced itself Kiffin was destiny, that fate was aligning, that the visor was returning \u2014 anything else feels like a cheap prize in a box of cereal.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the raw truth:<\/p>\n
With Kiffin saying no, athletic director Scott Stricklin isn\u2019t walking back into the good graces of the fan base anytime soon.<\/p>\n
This hiring cycle is his do-or-die moment.<\/p>\n
Land Kiffin and Stricklin saved his reputation.<\/p>\n
Miss and watch your remaining support dissolve like cotton candy in a rainstorm.<\/p>\n
Stricklin hired Dan Mullen and Billy Napier \u2014 two lightning rods of disappointment \u2014 and now he stares at his third strike.<\/p>\n
He knows it.<\/p>\n
Fans know it.<\/p>\n
Boosters know it.<\/p>\n
Kiffin was his grand slam attempt.<\/p>\n
And it apparently has landed foul.<\/p>\n
Florida fans didn\u2019t just want Kiffin.<\/p>\n
They needed him.<\/p>\n
They needed his irreverence, swagger, trash-talk, entertainment value, originality.<\/p>\n
They needed his recruiting juice.<\/p>\n
They needed his Spurrier-esque refusal to fear anyone.<\/p>\n
They needed a coach who felt bigger than the program \u2014 because Florida hasn\u2019t felt big in years.<\/p>\n
And when the Lane Train came barreling down the tracks, Gainesville threw its bags aboard without waiting for confirmation it was stopping.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n
And the crash of disappointment is seismic.<\/p>\n
Who knows what Kiffin\u2019s ultimate decision will be: Will he take the LSU job? Will he take an NFL job?<\/p>\n
Personally, I hope he stays at Ole Miss.<\/p>\n
As much as I would love to see him coaching in Gainesville, staying at Ole Miss would be both admirable and refreshing.<\/p>\n
Refreshing that a coach chooses a smaller place over a bigger name.<\/p>\n
Refreshing that loyalty still means something in this rootless, rudderless sport.<\/p>\n
Refreshing that a long-dismissed program can hold onto its star.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a sign of how today\u2019s game works:<\/p>\n
Money matters.<\/p>\n
NIL matters.<\/p>\n
Booster collectives matter.<\/p>\n
Brand logos matter less than bank accounts.<\/p>\n
If Kiffin stays at Ole Miss, it would reflect the democratization of college football.<\/p>\n
But Florida fans don\u2019t care about the morality of it.<\/p>\n
They care that they didn\u2019t get him.<\/p>\n
Because they wanted the showman.<\/p>\n
They wanted the spark.<\/p>\n
They wanted someone who made Florida feel important again.<\/p>\n
Key may be rising.<\/p>\n
Fisch and Brohm may scheme circles around half the SEC.<\/p>\n
Sumrall may be a quietly ascending star.<\/p>\n
But none of them sell hope like Kiffin.<\/p>\n
None light the fuse Gator Nation craves.<\/p>\n
Anything short of Kiffin is framed as failure.<\/p>\n
The absurd part?<\/p>\n
Florida was likely ready to pay him $100 million or maybe $150 million.<\/p>\n
The Gators were probably ready to break the bank, break precedent, break the buyout market again.<\/p>\n
College football money is a joke \u2014 a reckless carnival of desperation \u2014 and UF likely dove headfirst into the deep end.<\/p>\n
And yet \u2026<\/p>\n
Kiffin still said no.<\/p>\n
Which leaves the Gators with a problem.<\/p>\n
Once you believe your soulmate is walking through the door, how do you get excited about anyone else?<\/p>\n
No matter whom the Gators hire, it will be portrayed as if they settled, as if they missed the Lane Train.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the risk of aiming high. It means the fall is farther.<\/p>\n
No matter if he stays at Ole Miss out of loyalty, chooses LSU\u2019s talent and resources or decides to go coach against the best of the best in the NFL, Gator Nation still takes it personally.<\/p>\n
Because Kiffin wasn\u2019t just a candidate.<\/p>\n
He was the identity reboot Florida wanted; the cultural energy they\u2019ve lacked since Steve Spurrier\u2019s smirk and Urban Meyer\u2019s scowl.<\/p>\n
And that dream has died.<\/p>\n
And, with it, Gator Nation spirals into existential interrogation:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Are we still a top-tier job?<\/p>\n
\u2022 Are we still attractive?<\/p>\n
\u2022 Are we still feared?<\/p>\n
\u2022 Are we still Florida?<\/p>\n
And the scariest one of all:<\/p>\n
\u2022 What if we\u2019re Nebraska with palm trees?<\/p>\n
The next coach might be great.<\/p>\n
He might win big.<\/p>\n
He might resurrect the program.<\/p>\n
But he will always be the man hired after Florida struck out on Lane Kiffin.<\/p>\n
And that asterisk \u2014 fair or not \u2014 hangs over the Stricklin era.<\/p>\n
Because the heart wants what it wants.<\/p>\n
And Florida wanted Lane Kiffin.<\/p>\n
With him saying no, the mourning begins.<\/p>\n
And Florida football wakes up once again to the harsh dawn of what it has become:<\/p>\n
A once-mighty empire still searching for the man who can bring back the magic \u2014 and now forced to settle for someone who isn\u2019t Lane Kiffin.<\/p>\n
Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on social media @BianchiWrites and listen to my new radio show \u201cGame On\u201d every weekday from 3 to 6 p.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com\/listen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gator Nation, brace yourself. Lane Kiffin, according to sources, isn\u2019t coming to Florida, and UF fans aren\u2019t merely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,2530,30,29,10713,4657,10481],"class_list":{"0":"post-64318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-gators","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-lane-kiffin","13":"tag-lsu-tigers","14":"tag-ole-miss-rebels"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}