Lane Kiffin leaving Oxford for Gainesville would be stunning, actually.
Long before Billy Napier’s inevitable firing at Florida became official over the weekend, Lane Kiffin’s name had been linked to the Gators. With the position now open, the whispers about Kiffin to Gainesville have turned into screams from many Florida fans and media members alike, but there is one factor in all of this that some are struggling to grasp.
Florida is not a better job than Ole Miss.
If we were having this conversation 10 or so years ago, Kiffin would jump at the opportunity. If it were 10 years ago, Kiffin would have left Oxford last season and would be the head coach at Auburn right now. Luckily for Ole Miss fans, it is 2025, and with the current landscape in college football coupled with the Rebels’ support of Kiffin in every capacity, the head coaching job at Ole Miss is on equal footing as the head coaching job at Florida.
Look past the name on the side of the helmets, realize you were 16 years younger when Tim Tebow was playing for the Gators, and that the only rule in college football today is money talks. There is nothing, outside of warmer weather, that makes the Florida job better than the Ole Miss job.
Lane Kiffin coaching Ole Miss on the sideline. (Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-Imagn Images)
Ole Miss is 50-19 since Kiffin took over in 2020, while Florida has posted a record of 36-34 in that same span.
Kiffin currently makes $9 million per season and will be offered a new contract that will see that number move north of $10 million per year sooner rather than later. Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter recently told the Ole Miss Spirit he’d “love to get something done like Indiana did with Curt Cignetti.”
Cignetti inked a new contract a week ago that will see him take home an annual average salary of about $11.6 million. Carter going on the record, and directly referencing Cignetti, is the clearest of signs that he and the university are willing to pay whatever it may take to keep Kiffin in Oxford, which they’ve proven with extensions and salary bumps in years past.
Again, money – from both a coach’s contract and NIL perspective – is the only thing that matters in today’s college football. Ole Miss has been able to dominate the transfer portal over the past few years, with Walker Jones running point with the Rebels’ NIL collective, while affording to not only pay Kiffin, but his support staff as well.
According to Chase Parham of Rebels 247, Ole Miss offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. and defensive coordinator Pete Golding are the highest-paid coordinators in the SEC.
Lane Kiffin taking in the Walk of Champions at Ole Miss. (Ayrton Breckenridge/Clarion Ledger / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
With the difference in money being non-existent, let’s take a brief second to talk about recruiting.
Recruiting – from the traditional high school sense – does not matter.
The high school talent in Florida is among the most elite in the country, but the best players in each state simply go where the money is and jump into the transfer portal if things don’t go to plan as a freshman or sophomore.
Kiffin, more than any other coach in college football, recruits out of the transfer portal and junior college ranks. The era of the ‘homegrown kid’ is dead.
Lastly, Kiffin appears to be incredibly happy living in Oxford. Call it sappy, soft, or overblown if you want, but Kiffin’s personal life seems to be in the best place it’s maybe ever been.
He’s been on record multiple times saying that he needed Oxford way more than Oxford needed him. It may have taken him a bit to recognize that, but he and his family have immersed themselves in the slower pace of living in small-town Mississippi.
Kiffin’s son, Knox, is the quarterback at Oxford High School. His daughter, Landry, moved to Oxford and is a student at Ole Miss, and his ex-wife, Layla, recently moved to town as well.
Life doesn’t appear to be good for the Kiffin crew in Oxford; it appears to be damn-near perfect. Messing with that for what would be a lateral move to Gainesville would go against the momentum Kiffin has accumulated both on and off the field at Ole Miss.
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