Lane Kiffin shared critical steps Ole Miss is taking to ensure bright future beyond 2024 College Football Playoff
While Ole Miss fans are still likely basking in the glow of the greatest victory in Rebels' program history over Georgia Saturday, Lane Kiffin and his staff are already taking critical steps to make sure their momentum continues well into the distant future.Yes, Kiffin and his staff want to focus on the now, making sure […]
While Ole Miss fans are still likely basking in the glow of the greatest victory in Rebels' program history over Georgia Saturday, Lane Kiffin and his staff are already taking critical steps to make sure their momentum continues well into the distant future.
Yes, Kiffin and his staff want to focus on the now, making sure they're ready to make a push towards the 2024 College Football Playoff. However, based on his somewhat surprising comments on Monday it's clear he has a much bigger vision for Ole Miss that extends well beyond just this season.
His comments on his planning process began when he was asked about whether he was worried about his players being tampered with around this time of year. Kiffin had this to say:
"I mean, it is what it is. It does help when you're still alive for the playoffs in my opinion because you've got a little more focus on it [from the players], but that happens."
As some teams understand their seasons are about to come to an abrupt end in just a few short weeks they may attempt to steal away disgruntled players from competitors. This kind of behavior is not okay, but many coaches will likely tamper, hoping to get preliminary agreements in place ahead of the December window where players can freely transfer schools.
If Kiffin had stopped there with his answer, his comments would not have been that intriguing, but he continued:
"We've also got to prepare for the future. We spent yesterday afternoon and last night watching already–people that we think are going to be in the portal and how we're going to retool next year's team to make another run like this."
Immediately following the biggest victory of his career, rather than rest or even focus on Florida (the team Ole Miss plays in two weeks), Lane Kiffin and his staff were grinding film of potential transfers to add for next year.
This is why Kiffin is the portal king. This is why Kiffin has logged three straight top 3 transfer recruiting classes. And it makes sense why he would continue such dedication to getting that portion of roster building right. He's proven over the last three years that building a potential contender-level roster via the transfer portal in tandem with strong high school recruiting can be done the right way.
Jaxson Dart, Tre Harris, Walter Nolen, Princely Umanmielen, and many more of Ole Miss' best players are all transfers. And high impact transfers are largely the reason why the Rebels defeated Georgia on Saturday. However, Kiffin went on to explain how difficult it is to find the "right" transfer players:
"That's a big challenge. It's why free agency doesn't always work in professional sports. Or, as you look in college sports now. Last couple years every team that just went and signed a really good portal class hasn't meant that they've played really well."
Finding the right fit with their transfer players has been everything for Ole Miss' success over the last few seasons. And that's why he and his team put so much work into it. They've been able to find players who put the team before themselves, even if that means less playing time for them as individuals:
"So, we put a lot into that. Like I said, just the film work, figuring out who the players were [we wanted to bring in]. It's never an exact science, but our guys have bought in really well and done a really good job. And I told them today, 'A lot people in this [team meeting] room–a lot of the guys in here have reduced roles from what they were playing at previous places, or what they even envisioned and it just worked out that way.' And they've done a really good job of handling that. Playing in limited roles or special teams, and buying in, which isn't easy to do because for a lot of them it's their last year."
Kiffin acknowledged that developing this year's elite team has not been an easy task. He spoke of their mixing and matching on defense, trying to find the right fit for players that they hadn't directly worked with a ton before this season.
For example, Jadon Canady has lined up all over for them this year. He's played as a box defender, free safety, slot corner, but has now settled in as perhaps their highest impact perimeter cornerback, logging five passes defended in the last four weeks alone. Kiffin understands that playing with transfers is all about finding the right fit, and it seems his team is fitting together at just the right time.
Ole Miss now enters their bye week at 8-2, likely to rank inside the 12-Team College Football Playoff field this week, and it's all due to Lane Kiffin's development of his transfers. Holding them together as one unit.
And as Kiffin credited today, it's key leaders like quarterback Jaxson Dart that are bringing them all together. Kiffin shared that since the Oklahoma game it's seemed his players are driving to defy the narrative that "they just came [to Ole Miss] for money and Ole Miss can't be one of those teams that really makes an elite run, and they can't be a championship team." That narrative looks like it's completely done for now as the Rebels look primed for a College Football Playoff run here soon. If Kiffin's advanced planning process continues to work, fans can expect many more seasons just like this one.
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We'll be back with more Ole Miss Rebels coverage here at A to Z Sports all year long! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news!
And if you want to watch Lane Kiffin's full November 11th presser you can check that out in the video below!
