Joel Klatt predicts Lane Kiffin will leave Ole Miss, take LSU job over Florida

With four games remaining in his fourth season as LSU‘s head coach, Brian Kelly was fired following an embarrassing 49-25 home loss to No. 3 Texas A&M last Saturday night. After opening the season with College Football Playoff aspirations, LSU dropped to 5-3 with its second consecutive loss.

Kelly was brought over from Notre Dame prior to the 2022 season with expectations to get LSU back to the College Football Playoff, which it hadn’t appeared in since 2019. Not only did Kelly fail to lead the program to a National Championship, but the Tigers didn’t even make the Playoff under his leadership.

The program is now conducting its third coaching search in the last decade, with Ole Miss‘ Lane Kiffin, Notre Dame‘s Marcus Freeman, Tulane‘s Jon Sumrall and Louisville‘s Jeff Brohm emerging as some of the early candidates. During a hit on Wednesday’s edition of ‘The Herd with Colin Cowherd‘, FOX Sports‘ Joel Klatt revealed that he thinks Kiffin will make the jump from Ole Miss to LSU.

“LSU is intriguing,” Klatt said. “I just think LSU is a step above. I think you have to overachieve at Ole Miss and you’ve got to do things that the program has never done to reach your goals and win at the top end of college football. In a lot of respects, the best years of Ole Miss football (at least in recent vintage), is what we’re seeing right now. Does he want better than that and go to LSU? We know that LSU can go and put together rosters year in and year out.”

“They compete not only at the top end of the SEC, but also in the country and win a National Championship. I do think it comes down to resources and like I said, I think LSU has top two or three resources financially in college football. I know a couple of their boosters. They have deep, deep pockets and in this day and age, that’s what you have to have. I think Lane will (leave). If I had to bet, Lane Kiffin is your next coach at LSU.”

Kiffin denied rumors around jumping jobs on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’

Although Kiffin has been linked to both the LSU and the Florida job, he has vehemently denied leaving Ole Miss.

“Just so you know, because you haven’t known me very long, Pat, I have never made a decision based off money, nor will I,” Kiffin said on ‘The Pat McAfee Show‘ earlier this week. “For a lot of people, they’re just like, ‘Well, money, and it does this and does that.’ I’ve seen too many examples in life where money does not buy happiness. So I’m never going to make a decision off of money, nor do I care about it. [My agent] Jimmy Sexton gets really mad when I say that.”

“I probably wouldn’t even have mentioned it, because they’ve been through this every year. Probably four years in a row, but we have so many new guys. I just told them, ‘Hey guys, that’s what happens around here because we win games and people like the style that we play in.’ That’s all a compliment to the players.”

While LSU and Florida conduct their head coaching searches, Kiffin has his 7-1 Ole Miss Rebels in position to make the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history.