Joel Klatt sends strong message to Lane Kiffin amid Florida, LSU rumors

While the weekend of the Egg Bowl is always significant for fans of Ole Miss and Mississippi State, this year's matchup certainly carries for extra cache for Rebel fans. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has a deadline immediately following Friday's game to advise Ole Miss officials if he intends to stick with the Rebels or coach elsewhere next season. FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt weighed in on Kiffin's wild week with some significant advice.

Klatt's Take

How does Lane Kiffin leave Ole Miss in the middle of a Playoff run and have any credibility at his next place? I don't think that he would. Your credibility is your currency as a coach. We can sit here and lament the calendar and realize that this is not a great position for Lane to be in. I totally agree with that. But it's also still up to him. If you say yes to everything, how can you be committed to anything? I don't think he has to go anywhere to find success.
Joel Klatt

Kiffin's Credibility

The wrap on Kiffin heading into the Ole Miss job after the 2019 season was that he wasn't credible in terms of the consistency of his effort. Kiffin hadn't coached anywhere longer than 3 1/2 years until his current run at Ole Miss. Kiffin famously left Tennessee after a single season at their coach, creating one of the most bizarre scenes in the history of coaching job-hopping.

Ole MIss Sojourn

But Kiffin, now 50 years old, has shown signs of maturing at Ole Miss. Gone has been much of the outside bombast that characterized the younger years of Kiffin. In six seasons at Oxford, he has become one of the longest-tenured coaches in the SEC (only Mark Stoops and Kirby Smart have been at the current jobs longer) and has reached success preivously unknown to him as a head coach.

Competing Offers

That said, Florida and LSU are reportedly now offering Kiffin around $13 million per year with promises of greater NIL backing than he has experienced at Ole Miss. That said, it's Ole Miss that is apparently bound for the College Football Playoff, while millions didn't send Billy Napier or Brian Kelly's teams to the Playoff in 2025. As Joel Klatt noted, Kiffin doesn't need a move to experience success. But will more money and more prestige be irresistible? It promises to be a fascinating week.