Next Tiger King? Why Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin is the best candidate for the Auburn opening
A little more than two decades ago, Auburn officials went to Oxford, Mississippi and found its next football coach.
It’s time for another trip up I-65.
Make Lane Kiffin say no, Auburn. Make Ole Miss’ head coach the next Tiger King.
With Bryan Harsin out, Auburn is open for the second time in three seasons, and the school’s boosters, administration and newly hired AD John Cohen must avoid the sea of dysfunction and infighting that’s plagued the Tigers lo these many years.
The job presents enough challenges as is — the roster is baron of blue-chip talent, you have to recruit against Nick Saban and Kirby Smart plus play Alabama and Georgia every year — so Auburn must unite around a singular candidate with a plan and purpose, and that guy is Lane Kiffin.
Cohen, formally Mississippi State’s athletics director, has had a front-row seat to watch Kiffin’s success at Ole Miss.
What does it take to win at Auburn?
Bring in elite talent, and have steady quarterback play.
What does Lane Kiffin do best?
Ole Miss’ third-year head coach is not an elite recruiter, but Kiffin is the self-dubbed ‘Portal King’ for a reason. Even at a place handcuffed by a just-recently united NIL vision, Kiffin has turned over the Rebels’ roster in short order by hammering the transfer portal.
A year after delivering Ole Miss its best regular season in school history (10 wins), the Rebels are off to their best start in nearly six decades despite losing star quarterback Matt Corral, a cast of other playmakers and both coordinators from 2021.
Kiffin has seamlessly managed a roster with more than 30 new players this season.
A similar trick is needed next season on The Plains.
Whoever takes over Auburn better have a strong handle on the transfer portal. The roster needs an immediate facelift. With a burgeoning NIL collective that’s reportedly sitting on a war-chest north of $13 million, why not go get the master at landing the best players from the transfer portal?
Kiffin could also benefit from a deeper pool of prep prospects in Alabama, turning more focus on recruiting (like he did at USC and Tennessee) than he has at Ole Miss.
But Kiffin’s candidacy is more than just his ability to pluck talent in college football’s new world of free agency. He’s one of the sports’ smartest offensive minds. He’s an excellent play-caller. He’s developed quarterbacks at every stop he’s been. And he’s malleable, too, as this year the Rebels are shredding defenses with the nation’s best ground game not from a service academy (No. 3 nationally in rushing, No. 2 in rushing touchdowns).
He clearly learned lessons from his days at USC and as Alabama’s offensive coordinator, becoming a more seasoned coach at FAU, where he went 26-13, and Ole Miss, where he’s won 18 of his last 21 games.
Kiffin would also boost Auburn’s marketability, giving a sputtering program buzz and juice on social media. Kiffin certainly won’t be afraid of the challenge of going head-to-head with buddies Saban and Smart, either.
It just makes too much sense.
While Harsin and the Tigers looked destined for divorce from the jump, Kiffin would be the perfect bounce-back marriage.
All that to say, I don’t know if Lane Kiffin absolutely wants the Auburn job. That’s a conversation between him and super-agent Jimmy Sexton.
There have been conflicting reports for more than a year on how happy or unhappy Lane is in Oxford. He’s already making $7.5 million and doesn’t face near the pressure he would with the Tigers.
But at Auburn, Kiffin could have a contract with even more leverage (Mississippi state laws don’t allow contracts to be longer than four years) and money (see: $8-9 million), and you wouldn’t hear him gripe about a lack of fan support or NIL donations. Auburn’s facilities, including its upcoming $100 football factory, are better than Ole Miss’, too.
If Kiffin truly wants to compete for titles — something the prior four coaches to Harsin at Auburn all did and something that’s never happened at Ole Miss — then it’s a no-brainer.
It’s time to party like it’s 1999, Auburn. You did it once with Tommy Tuberville, and it’s time to go back to Ole Miss and do it again with Lane Kiffin.