Hunter Yurachek addresses impact of Lane Kiffin departure on Ole Miss, College Football Playoff

As news spread of LSU’s pursuit of Lane Kiffin, one of the biggest questions was how his potential departure would impact Ole Miss and the College Football Playoff. Tuesday night, as it turned out, the Rebels ended up jumping a spot to No. 6.

Speaking with reporters Tuesday night following the penultimate rankings reveal show, CFP committee chair Hunter Yurachek addressed the conversations within the room about Ole Miss. He made it clear the topic came up, just as it did with Oregon as offensive coordinator Will Stein prepares to leave for Kentucky. Stein and others, such as North Texas’ Eric Morris and Tulane’s Jon Sumrall, are expected to stay with their programs through the CFP, though.

But Yurachek said Kiffin’s departure did not impact Ole Miss’ standing because the committee has not seen the Rebels without him on the sideline. As a result, he said it didn’t factor into the conversations much.

“We absolutely did talk about that,” Yurachek said. “One of the principles in our selection protocols is the availability of coach and players. We not only talked about the situation at Ole Miss, but we also talked about the offensive coordinator position at Oregon, the head coaching positions at James Madison, North Texas and Tulane. While I think those coaches are going to be coaching their respective teams, there’s obviously a distraction.

“But what the committee, in the end after discussing, it felt we don’t have any games where Ole Miss does not have their head coach or Oregon potentially has a distracted offensive coordinator, etc. That really didn’t weigh into our consideration this week and how we ranked the teams.”

Later in the call, Yurachek was asked directly about the College Football Playoff principles. According to the website, “Other relevant factors such as unavailability of key players and coaches that may have affected a team’s performance during the season or likely will affect its postseason performance.” On3’s Chris Low previously detailed how Kiffin’s departure could impact Ole Miss’ CFP standing.

Yurachek then reference the Florida State situation in 2023 when the Seminoles missed the then-four team College Football Playoff after Jordan Travis’ season-ending injury. He said the committee had the ability to see what FSU looked like without Travis on the field, and that isn’t the case with Ole Miss playing without Lane Kiffin as head coach.

“I wasn’t a member of the committee a couple years ago, but it’s been referenced in the room that the Florida State instance where they lost their quarterback, there were a couple of games that the committee had to evaluate where Florida State did not have their starting quarterback that they had for the majority of the season,” Yurachek said. “We don’t have any way to evaluate what Ole Miss looks like, plays like, without their head coach.

“It looks like they stabilized that program by appointing their defensive coordinator as their head coach. Their offensive coordinator, we were told, was going to come back and call the plays. We can only evaluate what we know, and what we know is that Ole Miss is an 11-1 football team.”