Skip to main content
Join Now
Get a profile. Be recruited.

Lane Kiffin uses Brian Kelly as proof that three losses gets you fired in college football

Untitled design (2)by: Sam Gillenwater10 hours agosamdg_33
Brian Kelly, Ole Miss HC Lane Kiffin
Ayrton Breckenridge | Clarion Ledger | USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

A lot of people around college football are wondering if Lane Kiffin has his mind where it needs to be at Ole Miss. He says he does, though, because, if he doesn’t, he’d say he would be out a job either way.

Kiffin shared his newfound belief as far as coaches go during an appearance on ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ on Tuesday. He said a loss or two will drop a coach’s team out of the rankings, but that a third loss is the sort of thing now that’ll get one fired. That, for example, is what happened last month to Brian Kelly at LSU, which Kiffin, ironically enough, referenced.

“I know that (they’re going to try to fire me if we lose the Egg Bowl). I know that,” said Kiffin. “I’ve said, when they’re like, all this stuff, and they’re like, are you focused on other places? I say, no, I’m focused on winning, because now what I’ve learned in college football – we have our little group chat with like Sark and Kirby and a couple guys, and we came up with this. You lose one, you’re out of the Top-10. You lose two, you’re out of the Top-25. You lose three, you get fired. So, you know, we’re focused on our job of trying to get to 1-0 every week, because that’s the profession that we’re in now.”

“Yeah, I mean, we just saw that with Brian Kelly,” Kiffin referenced later on. “That’s exactly the scenario that just happened.”

Based on those criteria, Kiffin wasn’t wrong whatsoever about how that played out for Kelly. LSU lost, again, ironically enough, to Ole Miss in Oxford on September 27th to fall from No. 4 to No. 11, lost to Vanderbilt in Nashville on October 18th to fall from No. 10 to No. 20, and finally to Texas A&M on October 25th to fall from No. 20 to unranked in the AP Poll. It also, being that third loss this season for the Tigers, was the final game for Kelly in Baton Rouge, as he was fired the next day on Sunday.

That in mind, Kiffin doesn’t want to risk even a second loss, let alone a third. That’s especially so with Ole Miss, ahead of the selection committee’s latest rankings for the College Football Playoff set to be released tonight, still playing for seeding in the CFP.

“There’s too many variables. Because, everybody’s like, well, you’ve got to get to the top-twelve teams, Well, now we’re finding out, depending on how other things go, you really got to get to the top-ten teams to make sure you make the playoffs, because two of the teams might not even be in the top-twelve. They could be twenty or twenty-five or something with the current, flawed system,” said Kiffin. “So, like you said, everybody’s like, well, man, you better be in the top-twelve. No, you better make sure you’re in the top-ten, or you might get left out.

“So, I ain’t worried about other stuff. I’m worried about making sure we win.”