DALLAS – Twelve years ago, Lane Kiffin was in the middle of polishing his head coaching reputation for the first time. Coming off a 10-2 season with a USC team in 2011 ravaged by probation, the Lane (Hype) Train was being hooked up as the Trojans were voted No. 1 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll.
One problem: The effects of having 30 scholarships taken away amid the Reggie Bush scandal were just settling in like a bad virus that can’t be shaken.
“I remember [thinking], ‘OK, you kind of want to buy in, but unless everything just lines up and you don’t have any injuries and everything goes perfect, you’re going to have problems,'” Kiffin told CBS Sports Monday at SEC Media Days.
That 2012 season was not perfect. Nothing lined up. The virus wouldn’t go way. USC finished 7-6, and 13 months later, Kiffin was famously fired on the LAX tarmac after a road loss to Arizona State.
A career that would be defined by comebacks was just beginning. We, Kiffin included, just didn’t know it then. It looked like the end. Ten years ago, he was a chatty, sometimes arrogant out-of-work coach. Armed with the knowledge only such suffering can bring, Kiffin knows a thing or two about how to approach this Ole Miss season.
It is one in which the Rebels are being tabbed the most talented Ole Miss team ever. It is one when expectations have never been higher for a program that last won an SEC title in 1963. It is one coming off a final AP Top 25 ranking of No. 5, the program’s highest since 1969 when the legendary Archie Manning was flinging it around.
If not for that USC downfall, it would have been a season where expectations had never been higher for him. Kiffin knows better now.
“This is a rat poison situation here to have all this attention on our players, and it means nothing because it’s all about the work that they put in, the process they do daily,” Kiffin said, sounding a lot like former boss Nick Saban.
Maybe that’s a reason to believe in Ole Miss. The one-time Boy King of coaching has become the self-described Portal King and matured along with it. The Rebels enter the season with the top portal class in the country. They were strong enough to lose former SEC rushing leader Quinshon Judkins to Ohio State and still be stout because of an improved defense that includes former Texas A&M defensive tackle Walter Nolen.
Almost sounds like a trade. Such is the landscape Kiffin has seized uniquely for himself. To climb back from the USC firing, he had to rehab his image. Saban threw him a lifeline that changed the face of college football when Kiffin was hired as Alabama offensive coordinator in 2014.
Kiffin installed the spread offense that year. It eventually led to Saban winning three of his six national championships with the Crimson Tide. It was also the catalyst for Kiffin’s ultimate comeback.
“It was huge,” Kiffin said. “I’m very appreciative of him those three years. The opportunity that he gave me to come there, a lot of people wouldn’t because it was controversial. I give him the credit for an old-school coach to be so good for so long because most old school coaches don’t evolve, they aren’t willing to take risks. I think he did that with me.”
Kiffin eventually burnished his image enough, going down a level to become coach at Florida Atlantic where he won 11 games twice. Now he has 29 wins across three seasons at Ole Miss, equaling the school record for that time span set by the legendary Johnny Vaught in 1962.
Things like this usually don’t happen at Ole Miss. It’s known for its parties in The Grove more than its championships. Now the next step. Essentially the question becomes, short of an SEC title, is Ole Miss – and its fans – content to hang a College Football Playoff participation banner in the indoor facility?
For decades, the experience has been good enough. Ole Miss claims “national championships” in 1959, 1960 and 1962, none of which were awarded by the two major wire services (AP or UPI/Coaches).
For now, it’s reasonable to dream. Quarterback Jaxson Dart was asked what it would be like to host a playoff game.
“I don’t think Oxford would be ready for that,” he said. “[It would be] like the Morgan Wallen concert when he came through. I don’t think it could compete. If we hosted a game, that would be a special day in Oxford. I would feel bad for whoever would have to come and play there.”
On some level, there has to be success in the postseason; the Rebels can’t be content with just earning a berth in the expanded 12-team field. There is actual pressure on Kiffin this year, beyond his quips, tweets about his dog “Juice” and portal raids.
“Twitter, you just be yourself,” Kiffin said. “I don’t do much coachspeak. I certainly don’t on Twitter. It could be kind of cool to be a normal fan … I think that’s just me being me. I’ve kind of always thought that Twitter – not that I’m right – Twitter you can be yourself.”
He may want to be a fan. At Ole Miss this season, Kiffin must deliver like a boss.
The CFP is there to help him deliver. There is a cohort of programs that fit the description in 2024 — Arizona, Missouri, Kansas State and Utah come mind — of teams that have never won a championship, but if they replicate their 2023 showings, they might be playing for one.
But at Ole Miss, a more pointed question must be asked. Is it playoff or bust?
“We don’t really look at it that way,” Dart said.
Actually, that’s the only way to look at it.
The 2023 season was stopped short by Alabama and Georgia to the tune of a combined 49 points, a reminder of just how far the Rebels have to go. But on this year’s schedule, the first in the SEC without divisions since the early 1990s, there is no Alabama. The Rebels get Georgia and Oklahoma at home. There are conference road games at Florida, Arkansas and South Carolina.
Squint and you can see a playoff berth, with one game being played at home, and The Grove partying about something more than just the abundance of bourbon.
It would beat drinking rat poison.
“We’re all humans,” Kiffin reminded. “You read stuff, you start to believe it … You’ve just got to continue to remind them that really means nothing. It really doesn’t.”
