Paul Finebaum reveals where Lane Kiffin will coach next season

Will he stay or will he go? Paul Finebaum predicts Lane Kiffin's future amid rampant speculation the Ole Miss coach is looking at either LSU or Florida.

To stay at Ole Miss, or go somewhere else? Paul Finebaum predicts Lane Kiffin's next move. | Maria Lysaker-Imagn Images

Will he or won’t he? The pressure is on Lane Kiffin to make up his mind, whether to stay at an Ole Miss program he helped build into a playoff contender, or seek out greener pastures at either LSU or Florida, as bettors predict he will do.

Paul Finebaum believes he sees the writing on the wall. By not telling Ole Miss outright that he’s staying there, it all but implies that he’s on the way out. The question is where.

Paul Finebaum predicts Lane Kiffin's future

“I think it’s Florida. He’s always been a Florida fan,” Finebaum said on ESPN.

“He grew up idolizing Steve Spurrier. I think it comes down to Florida or LSU. It seems like he has already left Ole Miss. You just don’t leave them hanging like he has.”

Kiffin had the opportunity to get in front of the rampant speculation about his future by simply putting his name on the dotted line for Ole Miss.

Instead, reports now indicate that both LSU and Florida have dispatched private jets to Oxford to give his family tours of their respective cities.

“If you’re going to stay here, all you have to do is say, ‘I’ve just agreed to a new contract,’” Finebaum said of Kiffin’s actions. 

“So I think he’s trying to decide between LSU and Florida, and Florida seems like a slightly better choice.”

Lane Kiffin's recent success

Florida is searching for that dynamic personality to take the helm of its football program, a game-changer in the vein of Steve Spurrier or Urban Meyer, and Kiffin always seemed like an ideal fit to meet those demands.

And he has the kind of success in the SEC that both programs are keen to swoop in and take for themselves. 

Kiffin’s Rebels are 10-1, winning double-digit games in three-straight years for the first time ever, and on the verge of making the College Football Playoff for the first time in school history.

Even with that success, it doesn’t look like the school is waiting around for him to make up his mind.

Ole Miss reportedly gave Kiffin a hard deadline of the Egg Bowl game against Mississippi State when it expects an answer from him about his future. If no answer comes, the current thinking is that he wouldn’t be allowed to coach in the playoff.

The coach has denied such a situation ever existed.

“That’s absolutely not true. There’s been no ultimatum or anything like that at all,” Kiffin told Pat McAfee.

“I don’t know where that came from. Like, a lot of that stuff comes out there. Like I said, man, we’re having a blast. I love it here. It just couldn’t be better... Our fans prayed for this type of thing, and now we’re in the middle of it.”

But while the Rebels are in the middle of a playoff push, the man who brought them there is in the middle of college football’s most high-profile coaching decision. Will he stay or will he go? Paul Finebaum has made his decision.