Paul Finebaum: Lane Kiffin doesn't believe he can win championship at Ole Miss

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum said Lane Kiffin doesn’t believe he can win a national championship at Ole Miss, hence the tease about leaving for LSU or Florida. Granted, these are Finebaum’s words and Kiffin could turn around at stay in Oxford and win a title this year!

Finebaum previously said Florida would be the better fit for Kiffin over LSU, but Ole Miss is the best spot for the head coach as everything is currently constructed. But sometimes, that’s just not enough.

“I think he’s best off where he is,” Finebaum said on Get Up. “That’s where he’s happy … Kiffin has battled a lot of demons, and he’s overcome them, but he seems intent on leaving. And the reason is very simple. I don’t believe Lane Kiffin thinks he can win a national championship at all this. I don’t know why he doesn’t think that, considering where they are in the polls right now and the amount of money, but clearly, as he looks around, Florida seems like a slightly better fit.

“But LSU is the hot school. LSU has won national championships under (Nick) Saban, Les Miles, even Ed Orgeron. They didn’t win one in four years under Brian Kelly, and that’s why they paid to get rid of him.” 

LSU is the hot team for most, including Finebaum even though he prefers Florida for Kiffin over the Tigers. That didn’t stop the commentator from bringing up Kiffin’s wild backstory as a coach.

“So it seems like LSU, right now, is the hot team. It could change, because we are dealing with Lane Kiffin,” Finebaum said. “Remember something about Kiffin, this is a guy that got fired on the tarmac at USC in 2013. Nick Saban resurrected his career, and he still got fired in 2016 a week before the national championship game. I say he got fired even though he had already given notice that he was leaving to go to Florida Atlantic as the head coach.”

If the unprecedented should happen: Kiffin announces he’s going to leave but wants to finish the year in the CFP with Ole Miss, Finebaum might lose it. Reports surfaced that Ole Miss could potentially block Kiffin from coaching in the postseason if he already determined he was going to leave for LSU or Florida.

“That would be a normal thing to think about, but it seems pretty obvious, Ole Miss has told him you’re not going to stay,” Finebaum said. “I think the distraction would be immense. He would be recruiting, trying to get players on his own team to leave with (him). I think that would be a disaster, but the idea of the coach leaving before the college football playoff reading, we are way, way in unprecedented territory here.”