Multiple Ole Miss players are disputing former Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin’s description of how the team reacted to his departure for LSU.<\/p>\n
Kiffin said Sunday his request to coach Ole Miss through the College Football Playoff had been denied by athletic director Keith Carter “despite the team also asking him to allow me to keep coaching them so they could better maintain their high level of performance.”<\/p>\n
Ole Miss junior linebacker Suntarine Perkins wrote Tuesday that Kiffin’s post “was not the message you said in the meeting room.”<\/p>\n
“Everybody that was in there can vouch on this,” Perkins wrote.<\/p>\n
Sophomore offensive lineman Brycen Sanders meanwhile wrote “everyone that was in that room would disagree” that the team asked Kiffin to keep coaching.<\/p>\n
Ole Miss senior offensive lineman Jayden Williams backed Sanders’ post:<\/p>\n
The Rebels named former defensive coordinator Pete Golding head coach in the wake of Kiffin’s departure.<\/p>\n
Kiffin said in his statement he had been “hoping to complete a historic six season run with this year’s team by leading Ole Miss through the playoffs, capitalizing on the team’s incredible success and their commitment to finish strong, and investing everything into a playoff run with guardrails in place to protect the area in any areas of concern.”<\/p>\n
The former Rebels head coach had been tied to head coaching vacancies at Florida and LSU for weeks before Carter announced Kiffin would provide an update on his future the day after last Friday’s Egg Bowl.<\/p>\n
Kiffin said<\/a> after Friday’s win over Mississippi State he had “a lot of praying to do to figure that out tomorrow.”<\/p>\n On Saturday, Kiffin held a meeting with Ole Miss officials that Yahoo Sports’\u00a0Ross Dellenger<\/a> reported was centered around his desire to coach the Rebels through the playoff before leaving for LSU.<\/p>\n Kiffin ultimately announced his decision Sunday afternoon, the day after the deadline set by Carter.<\/p>\n He said<\/a> afterward that he did not know until Sunday morning that he would not be allowed to coach in the playoffs, an account which Dellenger<\/a> reported had been disputed by Ole Miss officials.<\/p>\n It seems Kiffin’s accounts of his departure are now additionally being challenged by some of his players.<\/p>\n Sanders, Perkins and Williams posted about their former head coach shortly after the College Football Playoff selection committee moved the Rebels up one spot to No. 6 in Tuesday’s penultimate rankings.<\/p>\n Golding will now look to lead Ole Miss on a playoff run while Kiffin turns his focus to the Wednesday opening of his first early signing period in Baton Rouge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Multiple Ole Miss players are disputing former Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin’s description of how the team reacted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-327775","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\/327775","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=327775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}