Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin is a top target for these openings, with potential offers reaching $13-14 million annually.
Kiffin’s success with the transfer portal and roster building has made him a highly sought-after commodity.
Despite his success at Ole Miss, Kiffin has not yet won a Power conference championship or reached the College Football Playoff.
Imagine you’re Lane Kiffin, and a potentially magical season is unfolding at Ole Miss while college football is going to hell around you.
And everyone wants a piece of you.
They’re practically firing coaches all over the country to get in line to offer Kiffin $13-14 million annually to reset their program and find a way to recapture the glory.
Penn State fired James Franklin less than a year after he was one play from the national championship game. Florida fired Billy Napier after a win.
LSU needed a stiff bourbon, but eventually got around Sunday to firing Brian Kelly and giving him $53 million in go away money. And the only reason Hugh Freeze hasn’t been fired by Auburn is the decision-makers with all the cash tried to hire Kiffin three years ago. And failed.
So there’s no incentive to fire a colossal failure of a coach, whom you hired because of his skillset at coaching and developing offense — and your offense is among the worst in the Power conferences.
Auburn will just wait in that other line over there. And maybe take a run at a guy named Urb.
These universities may as well be degenerate gamblers. What’s the difference?
They may as well be bellied up to the craps table, sweating and shaking and knowing ― I mean, just knowing ― this roll of the dice with $53 million stacked on one number isn’t imploding on the come out.
Come on, sevens!
Meanwhile back in reality, Kiffin is a year removed from blowing an opportunity to reach the College Football Playoff because of unthinkable losses to a terrible Kentucky team, and a Florida team that was on the verge of firing its coach but didn’t.
Think about that fiscally reckless move: Florida could’ve gotten Kiffin much cheaper last year. Now they’ll have to make him the highest-paid coach in college football. Fully guaranteed, of course.
That is, if he doesn’t think LSU is a better fit.
This is where we are in this nuthouse of panic over patience, of if we don’t make a move, someone else will. There are other coaches who will be among the top of the collective wish list (Oregon’s Dan Lanning, Louisville’s Jeff Brohm, Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz), but there’s little doubt these early firings are a move to get in line for the hottest coach of the moment.
For a coach who has never reached the CFP, and never won a Power conference championship. It doesn’t mean Kiffin can’t or won’t, it just means he hasn’t.
And he’s going to make bank no matter what.
Years ago, when then-Florida coach Steve Spurrier was the only college football coach earning a million a year, Washington hired Rick Neuheisel away from Colorado and paid him a million annually.
Spurrier and Neuheisel were (and still are) good friends and golfing buddies, and Spurrier quipped to Neuheisel, “How much are they going to pay you when you win a championship, Ricky?”
As much as anything, they’re getting in line to pay Kiffin because he — maybe more than anyone — has figured out this transfer portal business. In the age of player empowerment, Kiffin understands and embraces the maddening job of roster building.
The multiple double-digit win seasons at SEC outcast Ole Miss is impressive, but imagine if he were at a program that could consistently land a Top-5 high school recruiting class — and then supplement from the portal.
Instead of turning over his roster every season.
If you’re wondering why Kiffin would leave a program he has built into an elite player in the CFP race, look no further. At some point, there will be a missed season (or two) from the transfer portal, and then you’re chasing.
Just look at Mike Norvell at Florida State. He somehow can’t consistently recruit high school players at an elite level, and has been reduced to the grab bag that is the portal.
Who among us would ever think the FSU coach would struggle recruiting elite high school talent? In the state of Florida.
You don’t need to imagine what Kiffin would do as a coach at Florida or Florida State, deep in the heart of one of the top three states for high school talent. Back in the day, Kiffin and his young pal Steve Sarkisian recruited the state of California like few have, loading up Pete Carroll’s USC roster for a dynastic run of conference championships and national titles.
Kiffin will crush high school recruiting in Florida or Louisiana (another talent-rich state), and the pressure of relying on the portal season after season won’t take a majority of his coaching oxygen.
All of these programs lining up for Kiffin have similar money, and none are more invested than the other. Ole Miss will do whatever Kiffin wants to keep him, both contractually and an increase of NIL funds.
This decision, no matter how many more blue-blood programs get in line, will be more about ease of transition and roster building. Not similar money and NIL commitments.
When Kiffin accepted his first major college job in 2009 at Tennessee, he roared into the stoic league taking shots at everyone. Coaches, players, the SEC commissioner; you name it, no one was safe.
He later admitted he did so because the Tennessee job was suddenly stale and needed a jolt of life. He was the center of attention for all the wrong reasons.
Now he’s in the thick of it again as the only right in a sea of wrong.
And he’s going to make bank no matter what.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
