Lane Kiffin reveals why he took the Ole Miss football job (it just means more)
By John Buhler
Lane Kiffin tells us why he decided to take the Ole Miss football job.
This isn’t Lane Kiffin’s first rodeo running a football team.
In fact, the Ole Miss Rebels are the fifth team he’s been in charge of in his one-of-a-kind coaching career. The son of one of the best defensive minds the sport has ever seen in Monte Kiffin, Lane Kiffin has cut his teeth as one of the better offensive coaches of his generation.
From the USC Trojans, to the Oakland Raiders, to the Tennessee Volunteers, back to USC, to the Alabama Crimson Tide, to the Florida Atlantic Owls, now to Ole Miss, it’s been one hell of a wild ride for The Lane Train.
Even though it was a Group of 5 gig, Kiffin had a pretty sweet thing going at Florida Atlantic. Boca Raton is a wonderful place to live and coach football. So is being in contention to win Conference USA every year. However, we knew Kiffin was destined to lead a Power 5 program once again like he did at Tennessee and USC before the Power 5 even existed. But why Ole Miss, though?
Lane Kiffin tells us why he picked Ole Miss over other jobs in the country.
In Dennis Dodd’s feature on Kiffin for CBS Sports, the new Ole Miss coach gives us the skinny on why he’s in Oxford and not back in Boca Raton for a fourth season.
“To me, there’s college football, then there’s the SEC plus a few teams — Clemson and Ohio State,” Kiffin said. “It’s not like I took this job to go to the Power 5. It was because it was in the SEC, a place that had won … It’s not like going to one of these places that never won or hasn’t won for 25 years. Five years ago, they were in the Sugar Bowl.”
Ole Miss quickly went on sanctions after the Sugar Bowl trip and the Hugh Freeze era of Rebels football capsized most catastrophically. However, there was a feeling that with the right coach, no scholarship reductions and no bowl ban that Ole Miss could get back to national relevancy once again. Matt Luke was a great guy and worked his tail off, but he’s not the force that is Kiffin.
Besides seeing the Rebels from across the gridiron in the SEC West during his three years on Nick Saban’s Alabama staff, Kiffin had a strong appreciation for that program. I mean, Ole Miss beat the Crimson Tide twice during Kiffin’s time in Tuscaloosa. The Rebels also went to a pair of New Year’s Six bowls in the earliest years of the College Football Playoff era. It wasn’t all that long ago.
Had Kiffin stayed at Florida Atlantic, he would have become a legend. They would have named the stadium after him and he could have been a Hall of Fame level coach if the guided the Owls to a handful of New Year’s Six bowls and plenty of Conference USA championships along the way. There’s nothing wrong with dominating in the Group of 5, but it was missing something for him.
“Living in Boca, house on the water, boat in the backyard — to me, everything was perfect,” Kiffin said, “except those 12-13 days a years where you’re just not on the biggest stage.”
Returning to the SEC West where he’ll have to face his mentor Saban annually, as well as his dear friend Ed Orgeron of the LSU Tigers, will not be easy. However, Kiffin knows exactly what he’s signing up for by joining these Rebels with a cause. We have never been more excited about the Egg Bowl in our entire lives. Kiffin vs. Mike Leach. We cannot possibly control ourselves.
If Ole Miss ever gets to Atlanta (in December), it’ll be because of Kiffin. All aboard The Lane Train!
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