{"id":296128,"date":"2025-11-17T01:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T01:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/296128\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T01:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T01:15:11","slug":"lane-kiffin-is-floridas-primary-target-what-happens-if-he-says-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/296128\/","title":{"rendered":"Lane Kiffin is Florida’s primary target. What happens if he says no?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida<\/a> is aggressively pursuing Lane Kiffin<\/a> to become\u00a0its next head coach. That much has become obvious in\u00a0the first month of the program’s search\u00a0to replace Billy Napier<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since day one, Kiffin has been Florida’s top choice, a sentiment shared by athletic director Scott Stricklin, the university’s most influential boosters and fans. That interest has, unsurprisingly, already led to conversations between the Gators and Kiffin’s camp in recent weeks without Kiffin directly involved yet, according to multiple sources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beyond the clarity of the aforementioned pursuit, however,\u00a0not much is clear at all.<\/p>\n

No\u00a0clear Plan B has emerged in Florida’s coaching search, according to the\u00a0individuals Swamp247 spoke with. Potential candidates such as former Penn State<\/a> head coach James Franklin<\/a> and Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz<\/a> have been floated as exactly that, potential candidates, but nothing more.<\/p>\n

Neither Franklin nor Drinkwitz has\u00a0drawn consensus backing as a fall-back option, either.<\/p>\n

To pair, Swamp247 has learned from multiple sources directly familiar with UF’s efforts that Arizona State<\/a> head coach Kenny Dillingham<\/a>\u00a0turned down a spot in the candidate line behind Kiffin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another name publicly tied\u00a0to Florida’s search efforts, Washington<\/a> head coach and UF alumnus\u00a0Jedd Fisch<\/a>, has\u00a0gone unmentioned as an option in any conversation Swamp247 has had with sources regarding backup options. It currently appears he is not seriously being considered for the role.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Southern California’s Lincoln Riley<\/a>, Louisville’s Jeff Brohm<\/a> and Georgia Tech’s Brent Key<\/a>\u00a0are externally viewed as possible candidates;\u00a0however, their internal standing on Florida’s board is unknown.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Call it bold, call it risky, call it whatever term you prefer, Florida’s coaching search can be summarized succinctly as ‘Lane Kiffin or bust.’<\/p>\n

While their\u00a0r\u00e9sum\u00e9s\u00a0are starkly different, that reality bears some similarity to UF’s pursuit of Napier four years ago: Stricklin zeroed in on one coach and one coach only, and it’s the hire he made.<\/p>\n

While this coaching search has come with much more public consensus about who the “right” hire would be, Stricklin’s seemingly go-for-broke approach is no less precarious. If anything, it comes with even more pitfalls. And it won’t get any easier.<\/p>\n

With Ole Miss achieving its 10th victory of the season Saturday night over Florida, Kiffin’s Rebels are all but certain to\u00a0secure their first College Football Playoff berth in program history this postseason, with the first round kicking off on Dec. 19.<\/p>\n

It would mark an unprecedented move for a coach to move on from a playoff team in the midst of its run.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The situation\u00a0begs\u00a0several critical questions. Among them:\u00a0<\/p>\n

How willing is Florida to be very patient for its top target?Is Kiffin planning to leave Ole Miss at all?\u00a0If he is, but intends to coach\u00a0the Rebels’ playoff run, would a handshake agreement be enough for the Gators?\u00a0If it all falls apart and Kiffin ultimately spurns UF, what\u00a0would Florida do next?<\/p>\n

It’s that last question that presents a rather considerable red flag.<\/p>\n

There is an inherent risk in Florida’s approach to selling out for Kiffin, as\u00a0its potential backup options are either actively having conversations, if not making agreements with other schools, or locking in with their current program.<\/p>\n

Franklin, for example, is “in the early stages of talks” with Virginia Tech for the Hokies’ head coach opening, ESPN reported Saturday. Dillingham said he’s staying put at Arizona State. Brohm is reportedly discussing an extension with Louisville. Indiana’s Curt Cignetti signed a lucrative contract extension last month, three days before Napier was fired.<\/p>\n

Florida’s engagements with non-Kiffin candidates or their camps have been limited to early-stage conversations about whether or not they would be willing to get in line behind the current Ole Miss coach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Internally, there is a sense of confusion regarding what Florida’s backup plan would be.\u00a0The hope, of course, is that one isn’t needed. The worry is that one could be.<\/p>\n

Kiffin is the most prominent perceived candidate of the 2025 college football coaching carousel\u00a0for good reason. He turned Ole Miss into a team few others want to face year-over-year following the program’s decades of, largely, mediocrity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since John Vaught’s 1970 retirement, the Rebels have finished the season ranked just 10 times. Kiffin’s Ole Miss has won 10 or more games in four of his six seasons at the program’s helm; the team had only reached that mark seven times in its history prior to his arrival,\u00a0including just twice in the 2000s.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, Florida is not alone in its pursuit of Kiffin.<\/p>\n

LSU, which fired Brian Kelly shortly after UF dismissed Napier, is targeting the 50-year-old. Kiffin is also rumored to be a person of interest for several NFL head coaching openings, including the New York Giants, where his former Rebels quarterback, Jaxson Dart, was a first-round pick this past offseason and has since turned heads.<\/p>\n

Not only is Kiffin staying put in Oxford a threat to the Gators, so too is the possibility that they simply finish second in the race to secure his services.<\/p>\n

Florida feels like a high-performance vehicle pushing to its speed limit. It’s tearing down a narrowing road at a rate that leaves no margin. The wall ahead isn’t theoretical. It’s visible and closing fast.<\/p>\n

The only thing between that machine and a catastrophic collision is Kiffin. He’s the emergency brake, the last-second steering correction, the only mechanism that keeps a reckless trajectory from becoming a ruin.<\/p>\n

If the Kiffin plan connects, the whole thing could level out, the wheels grabbing just enough road to survive and potentially flourish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If it doesn’t, though, if that single system fails, then there’s presently nothing left between the Gators and impact. No airbags. No backup plan. No runoff lane. Just a spectacular, violent crash no one in Gainesville can afford.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida is aggressively pursuing Lane Kiffin to become\u00a0its next head coach. That much has become obvious in\u00a0the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-296128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}