Lane Kiffin Draws NBA Comparison on Why Ole Miss Football Has Hit Late-Season Stride

Lane Kiffin has a theory on why his team is seeming to hit its stride late in the season.

Nov 9, 2024; Oxford, Mississippi, USA; Mississippi Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin watches during warm ups prior to the game against the Georgia Bulldogs at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Petre Thomas-Imagn Images | Petre Thomas-Imagn Images

It goes without saying that the Ole Miss Rebels are playing their best football of the season over the last few weeks, and leave it to head coach Lane Kiffin to have a theory on why that is taking place.

Kiffin, dubbed "The Portal King" thanks to his efforts in the transfer market in recent seasons, put together a roster full of returning talent and newcomers for the 2024 campaign. That can be challenging in its own right, but when it works, it seems to work well in terms of winning.

To help illustrate his point on why the Rebels are hitting a late stride, Kiffin drew a comparison to professional basketball.

"This was kind of like an NBA free agent team," Kiffin said on Monday. "It was put together late, there's a lot of late pieces, offseason surgeries. I think what you're seeing is just like when those teams are put together, they take longer sometimes than teams that have been together for years, and then they perform better later in the year.

"They screw up early in the year sometimes. I think that's what you're seeing here. Some people would say right now we're playing as well as anybody in the country, which we are, but I think that's a product of that."

Kiffin's premise makes sense. He himself has said that bringing in so many new faces year after year can be difficult to pull off while trying to build a cohesive team culture, but something has certainly clicked for the Rebels since the second half of their win against Oklahoma two weeks ago.

That came to a full head on Saturday when Ole Miss did what was thought to be almost unthinkable in late October: beat Georgia and keep its College Football Playoff hopes alive in the process. If the Rebels are able to win out and reach the CFP field, perhaps they will have this free agency model to thank after all.

At the very least, beating Georgia is an accomplishment in itself, but the primary goal is still reaching the playoff. The Rebels are off this week before returning to their postseason quest with their final regular season games against Florida and Mississippi State.