The tension is building in Oxford and Lane Kiffin is trying to dissipate it with a friendly interview.
A day after a wild scene of plane tracking and Kiffin family members caught on camera taking a visit to Baton Rouge, the Ole Miss head coach appeared on the Pat McAfee Show to put on a forced smile and try to calm the waters.
If you wanted any real clarity, this wasn't the show for you. The most notable point was Kiffin denying that Ole Miss administrators had ever issued an ultimatum that he must make a decision before the Egg Bowl.
"There has been no ultimatum, anything like that at all," Kiffin said. "And so I don't know where that came from, like a lot of stuff that comes out there. Like I said, man, we're having a blast. I love it here."
That is ostensibly true -- no source CBS Sports has talked to has used the word "ultimatum" -- but there is more to the story than simply what Kiffin said Tuesday. What has been bubbling behind the scenes for weeks finally came spilling out on Monday after the unprecedented situation of a sitting head coach's family members, including ex-wife Layla Kiffin, taking a private plane for a campus visit to a rival school at which he was considering taking a job.
There had already been a similar visit to Gainesville, Florida, the previous day, sources told CBS Sports, but the public nature of LSU's efforts sent the college football industry into a tizzy and had Ole Miss boosters furious over how brazen it all seemed.
Why were Kiffin family members taking visits to Florida and LSU in recent days? It all comes back to Ole Miss wanting clarity on Kiffin's situation, according to sources, and a recognition from Kiffin that putting off a decision until after the Rebels' season was no longer possible. As the timeline started to speed up, Kiffin wanted as much information as possible from trusted sources as he weighed his stay-or-go decision.
For weeks now, sources have told CBS Sports that if Ole Miss was convinced Kiffin was not staying long-term in Oxford, it would not let him coach in the College Football Playoff. Of course, thinking that and even expressing that sentiment is different than actually doing it and accepting all the complications that come with it. But it has been a real conversation happening within the Ole Miss athletics administration.
It might sound crazy to think Ole Miss wouldn't let Kiffin coach in the playoff -- as the school's preference is for clarity before the Egg Bowl -- but in many ways it has been years in the making, dating back to Kiffin's very public dalliance with the Auburn job back in 2022.
Kiffin has since admitted he made mistakes in how he handled Auburn's interest in him. The will-he-or-won't-he drama derailed Ole Miss' season and left a sour taste in the mouths of Ole Miss administrators, boosters and fans.
In some ways, Kiffin's near decision to take the Auburn job helped spur Ole Miss into this moment. It prompted a NIL fundraising drive to compete with Auburn's perceived bigger war chest. Ole Miss fans rallied to do and give everything they had to keep Kiffin in Oxford, to show him that he could have the resources necessary to win big. It was still fraught at times, especially when an 8-1 season imploded into an 8-5 finish, which included an embarrassing Egg Bowl loss to Mississippi State.
In a scene first reported in my book "The Price: What It Takes to Win in College Football's Era of Chaos," a prominent booster promised to make a $500,000 contribution to the NIL fund if Kiffin stayed at Ole Miss. And after the loss to Mississippi State came an updated offer from the booster: "I'll give that f---er $500,000 to leave." That's how frustrating the whole process was by the end, and that booster wasn't alone in that thinking.
All of the winning in the three years since has made Kiffin the celebrity du jour of Oxford, but that scar tissue didn't go away. Ole Miss administrators were deeply frustrated by how the Auburn distractions derailed that potentially special season, according to sources, and it appears to be having an impact on not wanting that to play out all over again, even if it worked out for Ole Miss the first time. The consternation isn't isolated to athletics, either, as university-side folks have expressed frustration in recent weeks with Kiffin's hold over the school.
There's also the real timeline issues that would occur if Kiffin left for another program in January. With the early signing period starting Dec. 3 and the transfer portal window opening Jan. 2, Ole Miss would be at a significant disadvantage if it lost Kiffin after, say, a quarterfinal or semifinal game in early January. If there's no way of changing Lane's mind -- and to this point, Lane has continued to tell people he hasn't made a decision, according to multiple sources -- Ole Miss is prepared to turn to either quarterbacks coach Joe Judge (the former New York Giants head coach) or defensive coordinator Pete Golding as an interim coach and to start a coaching search, according to sources.
That's not ideal and is driving a lot of the angst and frustration Ole Miss fans are now directing at Kiffin.
Everything Kiffin and Ole Miss administrators and boosters dreamed of doing together in Oxford is happening this season. The Rebels (10-1) are all but guaranteed to make the playoff, and they could earn a bye or at least a first-round home game ... if they can beat Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl.
This is supposed to be the culmination of all the blood, sweat and dollars spent to turn Ole Miss into a legitimate national contender. This should be the peak; instead, Kiffin's public flirtation with two rival SEC schools has sucked all the oxygen out of the room. That isn't all Kiffin's fault -- the brutal college football calendar has put him in a personally enviable yet impossible situation of having to manage outside interest while trying to finish the season out.
Kiffin is a mercurial menace in some ways, college football's version of Loki. All the trolling is plenty fun when you think you're on the inside of the joke. When you think you may instead be the butt of it, those feelings can change in a second. That's what's happening right now with Ole Miss boosters and fans. They feel the man who had gone to painstaking lengths to prove he has changed is back to his old antics. They fear they are being played, that their hopes and dreams are nothing more than social media fodder for Kiffin.
Will they accept him back if he decides to stay? Of course.
But there is a growing fear within Ole Miss that Kiffin doesn't love the school quite as much as he's publicly professed. He has complained, publicly and privately, about the fan base -- including a shot Saturday night about the crowd for The Citadel game. He's long been enamored with the idea of coaching a true blueblood again, an opportunity LSU and Florida are both eager to give him.
Perhaps, as one booster who knows Kiffin well put it, he feels he's already done it all in Oxford.
"He's run it like his town," the source said, "and there's no chase for him anymore. And he's a chaser. The chase is gone cause he conquered it."
Kiffin hasn't won the ultimate conquest -- a national championship -- but making a playoff at Ole Miss would be a tremendous accomplishment. And if he left Ole Miss for LSU or Florida, it'd be because he felt he hit his ceiling in Oxford and had a better shot at winning a national championship in Baton Rouge or Gainesville, according to sources. There are important people in Kiffin's life advocating for all the possible outcomes -- some have said LSU offers the best title chances, others believe he could win big and be happy at Florida. Ultimately, it will come down to where he thinks he can win it all and his family can be happy.
Deep down, Ole Miss just wants to hear Kiffin say he loves it and isn't leaving. But Kiffin, still unsure of what he wants to do, per sources, can't say those words. He can't say out loud to McAfee that he's definitely not leaving Ole Miss because that'd be a lie. He might.
In fact, multiple sources have told CBS Sports over the last week they believe it is more likely than not that Kiffin leaves, though there are always caveats of "you never know what he's going to do" when it comes to him. Nothing is truly done until he signs the deal, no matter how many people tell you it's happening, as Auburn learned the hard way three years ago.
And while Kiffin will continue to fall back on his stance that he doesn't deal with these things in-season -- of course, that hasn't precluded him from considering other jobs in-season -- it has put him on an island. In what is already a wild coaching cycle, multiple of the top names have taken themselves out of the mix in favor of an extension and raise at their current school.
Curt Cignetti and Indiana. Mike Elko and Texas A&M. Matt Rhule and Nebraska. Rhett Lashlee and SMU.
If Kiffin wanted to do the same, he could. Ole Miss desperately wishes he would.
But every day that passes signals to Ole Miss folks that Kiffin may soon be out the door.
It isn't over yet. And there are some still clinging to the dream that Lane will soon announce that while Florida and LSU badly wanted him to come save their programs, he was staying at Ole Miss to finish what he started. It's possible that he could.
More than anything, Ole Miss just wants clarity.
