{"id":308894,"date":"2025-11-23T12:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T12:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/308894\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T12:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T12:13:09","slug":"kirk-herbstreit-reveals-lincoln-riley-eli-drinkwitz-floated-as-backup-options-for-lane-kiffin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/308894\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirk Herbstreit reveals Lincoln Riley, Eli Drinkwitz floated as backup options for Lane Kiffin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/coach\/lane-kiffin-135051\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lane Kiffin<\/a> sweepstakes have become the biggest story in all of college football as the regular season comes to an end.<\/p>\n<p>Whether or not Kiffin will remain at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/ole-miss-rebels\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ole Miss<\/a> or depart for an opening at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/florida-gators\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Florida<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/lsu-tigers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">LSU<\/a> has yet to be revealed. Two of these programs will not be led by Kiffin next season however, which means that there needs to be a backup plan.<\/p>\n<p>During <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/tennessee-volunteers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tennessee<\/a>\u2018s blowout of Florida in Gainesville Saturday night, ESPN\u2018s Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit discussed backup plans for Florida if Kiffin decides not to coach there. Herbstreit named <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/teams\/usc-trojans\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">USC<\/a> head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/coach\/lincoln-riley-134569\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lincoln Riley<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/sites\/mizzou-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Missouri<\/a> head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/coach\/eli-drinkwitz-133588\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Eli Drinkwitz<\/a> as potential successors to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/rivals\/coach\/billy-napier-131395\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Billy Napier<\/a> in Gainesville if Kiffin doesn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody\u2019s talking about Lane,\u201d Herbstreit said. \u201cWhat if Lane Kiffin stays at Ole Miss or goes to LSU? I\u2019ve been asking everybody \u2018what if you don\u2019t get Lane Kiffin? Who\u2019s next?\u2019 Lincoln Riley\u2026 I\u2019ve heard his name. Eli Drinkwitz. There are different names, but it seems here at Florida, they\u2019re all counting on Lane Kiffin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Riley has been with USC since the 2022 season, where he\u2019s led the Trojans to a 34-17 record. Drinkwitz, who has been with Missouri since 2020, has led his program to a 45-28 record and a 2-2 record against Florida. Drinkwitz refused to comment about any job openings during Wednesday\u2019s weekly SEC teleconference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, I\u2019m not gonna make any comments about jobs,\u201d Drinkwitz said. \u201cI\u2019m talking about the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/college\/oklahoma-sooners\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oklahoma<\/a>\u00a0game. See my press conference from yesterday about my statement regarding that position. But I appreciate the question.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Drinkwitz did recently comment on other job openings that his name has been linked to. As recently as Monday, he shot down the idea that he wants to leave Missouri, calling it a distraction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of this stuff is just a distraction,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.on3.com\/news\/eli-drinkwitz-addresses-rumors-linking-him-to-other-jobs-across-college-football\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Drinkwitz said<\/a>. \u201cI would like to remind everybody, including our fans, we absolutely love Mizzou. We love what we\u2019re building. \u2026 My focus is going to remain on our team and our current situation and I am not going to get into all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lane Kiffin sweepstakes have become the biggest story in all of college football as the regular season&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[131549,399,125597,159791,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-308894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-eli-drinkwitz-01-alma","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-kirk-herbstreit","11":"tag-lincoln-riley-02-muleshoe","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-football","14":"tag-ncaafootball","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308894","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=308894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}