Lane Kiffin responds to report that he's leaving Ole Miss for Auburn
A bombshell report emerged that Lane Kiffin was planning to step down from Ole Miss and become the next head coach at Auburn this week.
Then, the coach had his say.
Initially, Jon Sokoloff of WCBI News in Columbus, Miss. reported that Kiffin decided to leave Ole Miss for the vacant Auburn position.
Sokoloff noted, "Sources say the Tigers haven’t officially offered the job to anyone yet."
That news immediately set social media ablaze with speculation about the reported move, but Kiffin intervened in the reaction himself shortly after: to apparently shoot down the rumor.
"That's news to me Jon," Kiffin said in a tweet responding to the report. "Nice sources."
Of course, what part of the report Kiffin took issue with wasn't made clear. Was it that he was taking the job at all? Or that it was happening on Friday?
Speculation has been rampant that Kiffin was interested in leaving Ole Miss for Auburn ever since the latter relieved Bryan Harsin as head coach on Halloween.
Those rumors only ramped up after what observers called a listless and uninspired performance by Ole Miss in a surprise loss on the road against unranked Arkansas.
Kiffin was asked directly about the Auburn job after that game.
“Fair question,” Kiffin said when asked about being viewed as Auburn’s top target.
“Like I said, I love being here. I don’t want to look to next year already with a regular-season game (still to play), but this is not one of those years where you were, ‘We’re going to lose all these guys.’
"There’s a lot of people coming back, and a lot of new guys offensively, especially. So, very excited about the future. So, I don’t know all that stuff out there — No. 1 (candidate) stuff. Maybe if they watched the first half (against Arkansas), I wouldn’t be No. 1 anymore.”
Notably, Kiffin never said that he was not considering the Auburn job. Or that he was. Time will tell as the college football coaching carousel warms up this offseason.
One thing we know for certain: the Egg Bowl is set for Thanksgiving, and Lane Kiffin will be on the sideline coaching Ole Miss.
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