OXFORD – I’m admittedly not a morning person. I blame that on my sportswriter roots – if I was supposed to wake up early, would more than half of the sporting events I cover happen at night? Just a thought.
Well, I became a morning person after No. 7 Ole Miss’ game against Florida. Because I know the guy leading the Rebels until about a day ago wakes up early for yoga, and I was liable to miss something if I took too long tossing and turning.
My wakeup call the last two weeks or so was in the 5:30 a.m. vicinity. What if I missed the tweet? It’s the same line of reasoning that led me to spend this past Sunday standing outside the Manning Center in 40-ish degree weather: What if I missed the moment of resolution?
I, along with my fellow local Ole Miss media members, just had a front-row seat to the circus of all circuses.
Let’s take a step back: Lane Kiffin, who led Ole Miss to a 55-19 record over six seasons and has the 2025 Rebels on the cusp of a College Football Playoff appearance, was courted by both Florida and LSU for their head coaching vacancies. Things start off as rumors, of course, but as they become solidified, it’s hard to ignore. It’s why the Ole Miss media contingent asked Kiffin point-blank after the Rebels’ 34-24 win over the Gators if he planned on being the Rebels’ head coach next season. The same question was asked over the bye week by national media in the weekly SEC teleconference as reports of his family flying into both Baton Rouge and Gainesville made national headlines.
Things reached a boiling point that week, with Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter having to release a statement that he, Kiffin and chancellor Glenn Boyce had met and that an official announcement on his future would come Saturday after the regular-season finale against Mississippi State. Between then was a social media post by Kiffin’s son, Knox, wearing LSU headphones in preparation of an Oxford High School playoff game. No, it was never going to be straightforward.
None of this made Egg Bowl Week any simpler, either. Kiffin was asked before and after the game of his intentions. As expected, he didn’t give away any of the cards in his hand, saying as late as Friday that he was undecided and that he had to “do some praying and figure this thing out.” After the game, Kiffin posted a picture of the Golden Egg near a drawing of his late father, Monte, and wrote that he wished he “could hug you right now and you could guide me.” It rang true to what he said following the Rebels’ 38-19 win over Mississippi State, that he wished he could talk with his father about his impending decision and that his mentors Pete Carroll and Nick Saban would be among those from whom he would seek guidance.
Strangely hanging in the backdrop rather than at the forefront of all this was the fact Ole Miss was 11-1 and a near shoo-in to host a first-round CFP game. But that took a back seat to everything else, for better or worse.
Friday night came and went without an answer; myself and a fellow media member spent our entire drive back from Starkville (safely) checking social media to see if any news might break early. We got to Saturday – the alleged day of reckoning – and still had no answer. We were told of a meeting between Kiffin, Boyce and Carter, but it apparently didn’t solidify anything. If anything, it further complicated the matter, as reports said Kiffin wanted to leave for LSU and still coach the playoff, per CBS Sports and others. When told no by Ole Miss, he reportedly threatened to take his offensive staff with him in the coming days. Amid all this, a sentence I can’t believe I’m typing: Kiffin’s dog, Juice, posted about the possibility of attending the SEC championship game should the Rebels participate (Alabama’s win over Auburn ultimately kept them out).
For the record, none of the drama was particularly surprising. Anyone who has followed Kiffin over the years knows these sorts of situations have followed him. His well-publicized exit in the middle of the night from Tennessee followed an unceremonious firing by the Oakland Raiders. And, of course, there was his time at USC. I graduated from USC in 2013 and was the sports editor of the school newspaper, the Daily Trojan, for a year. During my tenure, USC went 10-2 in 2011, started the next season as the No. 1 team in the country and finished 7-6. In there was a now-infamous occasion where Kiffin banned a reporter from practice for having reported a kicker’s injury. There’s also the firing on the tarmac at LAX following a blowout loss to Arizona State and his firing as Alabama’s offensive coordinator by Nick Saban prior to the national title game. So, theatrics aren’t a new occurrence, per se.
But this? This weekend in particular was stranger than fiction.
The strangeness reached its boiling point Sunday. A 9 a.m. team meeting was abruptly moved to the afternoon. Reports were that Kiffin was still trying to lead the Rebels in the postseason and was still adamant about taking staff. Per CBS Sports, “multiple Ole Miss football players confronted him in his office Sunday about it.” As the media contingent stood outside the football facilities, fans began to congregate as well. As players walked out of the aforementioned afternoon meeting – one where defensive coordinator Pete Golding was named full-time head coach – they yelled toward all in attendance, whether it be a “Hotty Toddy” or something about “The Pete Golding Era.” Fans applauded as players got in their cars and moved on from the chaos.
A few minutes away a very, very different scene took place as Kiffin and other staffers got on planes headed to Baton Rouge. Choruses of boos and other not-suitable-for-print things were yelled in Kiffin’s vicinity, and one-finger salutes were aimed in his direction. For those who have followed Kiffin’s career in Oxford, it was somewhat bizarre. Not the ending of his story here – it doesn’t always end clean with Kiffin – but how quickly it all got to this point. The head coach who led Ole Miss to four of its 11 all-time 10-win seasons, the man who repeatedly said how he needed Oxford more than it needed him, went from the hero to the villain in what seemed like an instant.
The Lane Kiffin Era is over at Ole Miss. The Rebels still have the CFP to play in later this month under Golding. I slept 12 hours Sunday night. It was the best sleep I’ve had in a while.
Michael Katz covers Ole Miss athletics for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.
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