Be careful what you wish for<\/a>\u2026.you may get it.<\/p>\nCalvin in Shreveport, La., writes \u2026<\/p>\n
Lane makes $9 million a year with millions to buy players, has Ole Miss in the thick of the national title hunt and refuses to commit to his team for the future. Why doesn\u2019t he grow a pair and try to make Ole Miss into the next Alabama or LSU? Florida has fallen off the cliff and will never get up.<\/p>\n
Richard writes \u2026<\/p>\n
I think part of Lane\u2019s maturation process was that he ascended to the heights of college football before he crashed and burned. Then when he was being reformed in the crucible fire by Coach Saban, he also got a chance to observe Coach Saban with Miss Terry. That partnership, which you\u2019ve also had a chance to observe, has been so transformative, in so many ways, it had to provide some \u201cfood for thought\u201d for someone who\u2019d also lost his family. <\/p>\n
ANSWER: There\u2019s no doubt in my mind that Miss Terry is the real reason that Lane Kiffin rehabilitated his career. Of all the SEC X-files, this is the conspiracy theory that actually makes the most sense.<\/p>\n
Miss Terry whipped Kiffin into shape while he was at Alabama. Now if we could just get Miss Terry in the same room with Alabama\u2019s running game, the Crimson Tide might have a chance in the Iron Bowl.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it was Miss Terry who ordered Alabama offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb out of the booth for the Iron Bowl and to the sidelines.<\/p>\n
Grubb coached from the sidelines against Eastern Illinois, but it had nothing to do with last week\u2019s FCS opponent. DeBoer wants Grubb to be on the sidelines for the Iron Bowl at Jordan-Hare Stadium, and Eastern Illinois was the practice game. But will Grubb being on the sidelines actually help Alabama\u2019s offensive line block against Auburn\u2019s mighty defensive front? <\/p>\n
It could be the change needed to save Alabama\u2019s season. If so, DeBoer will go down as a genius for shaking things up in time to make the College Football Playoff. If not, well, we\u2019ll have to wonder if altering the Tide\u2019s game-day routine this late in the schedule was a byproduct of DeBoer overthinking things after the loss to Oklahoma.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also possible that Miss Terry and husband Nick Saban convinced DeBoer that Jordan-Hare Stadium is haunted and that the ghosts of Iron Bowls past can sometimes interfere with the headphones at the most important times of games.<\/p>\n
The reader who reminded me that I\u2019m an idiot will no doubt agree.<\/p>\n
Alabama didn\u2019t \u201cdominate\u201d Oklahoma, though. The Tide just gave the Sooners great field position throughout the game, and the Sooners offense didn\u2019t have to do much to win it.<\/p>\n
Perhaps that loss is the thing Alabama needed to win the Iron Bowl, though. Miss Terry can only hope.<\/p>\n
But if Alabama loses to a backup quarterback who didn\u2019t even play last week for a team that\u2019s 1-6 in the SEC, then, no, the Tide will not be making the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Alabama is only a 5.5-point favorite, which is the mathematical equivalent of Las Vegas throwing up its hands and saying, \u201cWho knows? Good luck.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeBoer is standing on the cliff of another unacceptable season. If he loses the Iron Bowl, then the angry grumblings in these emails will become mandates to fire the coach and everyone involved with Alabama missing a 12-team playoff for the second year in a row.<\/p>\n
With so much speculation surrounding Kiffin, I have to wonder what Joey Freshwater would have done had he been hired at Alabama instead of DeBoer. Would Alabama have won the national championship last season with Jalen Milroe?<\/p>\n
My big question isn\u2019t whether or not Kiffin will announce his decision to stay or leave Ole Miss before Saturday\u2019s set of games. I want to know what\u2019s going to happen when Kiffin calls the bluff of his athletics director and doesn\u2019t say a word.<\/p>\n
Ole Miss wants an answer about Kiffin\u2019s future, but the SEC\u2019s Sly Fox would be wise to wait and see what happens in the Iron Bowl before committing to anything.<\/p>\n
No doubt that would be Miss Terry\u2019s advice, too.<\/p>\n
MAILBAG SOUND OFF<\/p>\n
Got a question for Joe? Want to get something off your chest? Send Joe an email about what\u2019s on your mind. Let your voice be heard. Ask him anything for the reader mailbag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is an opinion column. The short week of Thanksgiving is here and we have questions about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[6177,399,398,98726,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-312842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-american-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-college-football","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312842","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=312842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}