Lane Kiffin gives every answer except the one Ole Miss Rebels fans want to hear when asked about leaving after Florida Gators win

Lane Kiffin was asked directly about anticipating being the Ole Miss Rebels head coach next year and he wouldn’t quite give a direct answer to the questions

Travis May — College Football Managing Editor
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Ole Miss Postgame Press Conference – Florida Gators

The Ole Miss Rebels are 10-1. Lane Kiffin has Ole Miss on the precipice of making it into the College Football Playoff for the first time. He’s won just shy of 50 games in the last five season alone with the Rebels. It’s no wonder why every college football program (and some NFL teams) wants him to fill their head coaching vacancy. The question is, will he actually leave Oxford?

Kiffin has made it clear that he’s never been happier. He’s stated over and over just how much he loves it at Ole Miss. Any time questions are brought up about him leaving he simply shrugs them off. However, he hasn’t quite yet said “I’m staying”, which is what fans really want to hear. That frustration continued on Saturday as Kiffin was given multiple opportunities to say “I’m staying”, but instead just beat around the bush once again.

Lane Kiffin won’t give Ole Miss fans the one answer they want

Lane Kiffin had multiple opportunities to give Ole Miss fans the one answer they wanted to hear on Saturday, but just couldn’t bring himself to do it. In all fairness, there is virtually no incentive for Kiffin to just flat out say, “I’m staying”, right now because he would practically lose negotiating leverage for a contract extension with Ole Miss. There’s probably not going to be any change to how Kiffin answers these questions any time soon either. At least he did say some nice things about Ole Miss amid all of his non-answers.

When Kiffin was asked directly about the Ross Dellenger story that released this week where he shared how he once saw himself as somebody chasing the blue bloods, but now that’s somewhat changed in what could be his “last chapter” (as Dellenger put it in his story), the Ole Miss coach gave a somewhat funny answer, but then immediately deflected:

“The last chapter thing makes me feel like I’m 80 years old. So, I don’t like being old. So, I don’t really like that part of the story. Makes me feel like I’m on my last chapter. I love what we’re doing here. Today was awesome. I don’t talk about that stuff. Really, to even talk about it right now would be so disrespectful to our players and how well they played today. We’ve got a lot of things going here. Doing really well. I love it here.”

That’s not the kind of answer fans want to hear, as it could be construed as Kiffin actually having something to talk about (with potentially leaving), and he doesn’t want to do that to his players. However, he did finish it off with the fact that he loves what Ole Miss is doing and that he loves it in Oxford.

Kiffin continued shrugging off a couple drama and emotional related questions just like he did on the field following the game, saying he didn’t even think about that stuff. That didn’t stop more Ole Miss blue blood and head coaching related questions from coming in though. When asked about the environment and the program’s development into a potential blue blood and elite program Kiffin had this to say:

“[The fans] answered the call today. And they have in some big games for us. That’s been critical. I’m just telling you when you run out there – I just think it’s a big deal. Especially the way we face, and you run out there and that thing’s half full it’s a different energy that it creates for your players. Tonight being full at kickoff, and they stayed, it’s really important.”

It seemed that Kiffin ignored the second part of the question when it came to Ole Miss’ ascension to blue blood status, but the very next question unlocked the likely intended answer. A reporter asked Kiffin if he had thought much about this being his first victory over the Florida Gators in his tenure, to which Kiffin gave a funny answer, and expanded upon just how far Ole Miss has come:

“I seriously hadn’t thought about that. Thanks for reminding me [that I hadn’t beaten Florida]. That’s why we played their song because we finally beat them (he said jokingly, to some laughter from the press)…I had thought about how far our program has come. Because that was our first game actually [in my Ole Miss tenure], against Florida. The first game of our program here, we played Florida. We were a long ways away on the field from them. We scored late, so it looked like we scored a lot. That day the programs were a long ways apart. It’s been five and a half years later here, almost six years later. It’s really cool to see where our program is. Not just in that matchup versus Florida, but just in the SEC…As you get older, everybody always talks about the good ol’ days. I said, ‘Hey guys, I think we’re in the good ol’ days right now.’ I think we’re in them. I think for our fans, for our players, it’s like this utopia. So, enjoy it, because these runs don’t happen very often anywhere. It’s really cool.”

Ole Miss truly has come a long way since Lane Kiffin’s first game against Florida. The Rebels were fresh off a 4-8 season that ended the dreadful Matt Luke era for Ole Miss. It was the COVID year and everything was an absolute mess around the program at the time. Florida beat Ole Miss 51-35 in that opening game of the Lane Kiffin tenure in Oxford and it was clear there was certainly a gap between the programs. That’s obviously no longer the case.

Since that 2020 season Kiffin has gone 35-3 at home with Ole Miss. He’s gotten the Rebels ranked inside the top ten five times, won 49 games in just the last five seasons alone. Kiffin has turned Ole Miss into an NFL Draft prospect machine too. The Rebels program as it is today would be completely unrecognizable to fans just six short years ago.

Meanwhile, Florida has been an absolute dumpster fire They haven’t won more than eight games in a season since 2019 and they’re set to be on their third head coach in that span. Why on earth would Lane Kiffin want to leave what he’s built for that hot mess? The answer? He probably wouldn’t. Still, Ole Miss fans aren’t likely getting that kind of clear answer from him, at least for now.

We’ll be back with more Ole Miss Rebels coverage here at A to Z Sports soon! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news!

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