Unfiltered Thoughts: Lane Kiffin, Pete Golding, Ryan Day, the College Football Playoff conundrum and much more

A lot happens on college football Saturdays. Even more happens at the conclusion of the regular season when rivalry games are played and coaches are moving. It’s hard to keep up with everything.

So this season, in an attempt to bring everybody up to speed — while taking a chance to provide you with some takes in the process — I’m going to rattle off over-arching thoughts from the previous weekend. I’ll also do my best to spring thoughts forward, not just tell you what already happened.

Let’s keep it going with the latest edition of Unfiltered Takes.

1. Lane Kiffin: The move we’ve all been anticipating for a month happened Sunday. Lane Kiffin announced he was leaving Ole Miss for LSU, even though it means he can’t coach the Rebels in the College Football Playoff. Kiffin can be anything he wants to be right now — happy for a new opportunity, sad about leaving, anxious about new steps or even pumped about becoming the villain of college football. The one thing Kiffin can’t be? The victim.

2. Kiffin’s victim complex: On one hand, that Kiffin fought tooth and nail to stay with Ole Miss through its CFP run is admirable. He built a program for more than five years and took it to new heights, the peak being this season. Ole Miss won 11 games in a season for the first time in program history and that’s something of which he should be very proud. But Kiffin, who has spent his entire tenure at Ole Miss getting everything he wanted, probably feels resentment toward athletic director Keith Carter for not letting him see this through. At some point, though, Kiffin has to acknowledge that Carter didn’t have a choice. Keeping him active while transitioning to a conference rival just isn’t tenable.

Honestly, Kiffin’s goodbye note on X rubbed me the wrong way.

“I was hoping to complete a historic six-season run with this year’s team by leading Ole Miss through the playoffs, capitalizing on the team’s incredible success and their commitment to finishing strong and investing everything into a playoff run with guardrails in place to the program in any areas of concern,” he wrote. “My request to do so was denied by Keith Carter despite the team also asking him to allow me to keep coaching them so they could better maintain their high level of performance.” 

That was half of the statement. Really. Part of being an adult is making tough decisions. Weighing not being able to coach Ole Miss in the CFP was one of the cons of his decision. When you take the LSU job, you must realize seeing the season through isn’t happening before you even make the decision. Kiffin got everything he wanted at Ole Miss, but he shouldn’t have assumed he could have everything on the way out. That’s not how the world works.

3. The other hires: The dominoes fell elsewhere, too. Florida hired Jon Sumrall, Auburn hired Alex Golesh, Arkansas landed Ryan Silverfield and Ole Miss promoted defensive coordinator Pete Golding to the permanent head coach. Sunday was a wild day. All of those moves seem very functional. I wish I could give you a strong opinion of which of those programs made the best move, but it feels like musical chairs and hiring coaches is a crapshoot. The one thing that’s for sure? All those coaches are expected to make strides right out of the gate. Encouraging words to fan bases, excited or even dissatisfied with the moves their program made: sometimes, the best coaching hires come in unexpected packages. The person didn’t have to be famous or poached like Kiffin to be a great move.

4. Ole Miss and Golding: I like the swift action Ole Miss took in hiring Golding. When a program feels wronged by a person, hiring from within can galvanize a place. Ole Miss was hurt by Kiffin, no doubt, but it immediately found a savior in someone on his staff who didn’t get on the plane to Baton Rouge with him. Also, when a program is successful, hiring from within is usually a good idea. Golding’s first steps Ole Miss’ head coach is to lead them onto the field in the biggest game in program history, but it’s a great move right now to stabilize an emotional team and redirect all those thoughts of uncertainty into a familiar leader who is all-in on the program. I can’t wait to watch Ole Miss in the CFP.

5. Coaching candidates: If you look around at the top 10 coaches in college football right now, seven or eight of them were coordinators before they took their current jobs. That’s why it’s felt so strange to me that everyone with open jobs right now seemed so fixated on hiring sitting head coaches. Coordinators like Georgia’s Glenn Schumann, Oregon’s Will Stein and Ohio State’s Brian Hartline can now step into the spotlight of coaching vacancies and get the looks they deserve. Who knows, maybe one of those three (if they get a job) will be the biggest success story of this crazy cycle.

6. Ryan Day a year ago: I tried to picture how I would’ve acted if I were Ryan Day after beating Michigan on Saturday. It’s easy to forget now, given all Ohio State has accomplished over the past year, but try to place yourself in Day’s shoes a year ago at this time. He had just lost his fourth consecutive game to Michigan, and his own fan base was turning on him to the point that he needed a security detail at his home. The walls were caving in. It didn’t matter if he was more successful than 99 percent of coaches out there. He couldn’t beat Michigan and there’s never an excuse for that.

Meanwhile, everyone in the Michigan world is calling you soft, starting narratives about how your family was involved in manufacturing the sign-stealing scandal and how you’re not cut out for big-boy football. Remember the “third base” comment? That’s a lot on one person’s plate. How many other coaches would have been able to withstand all of that to get here?

7. Day now: After Ohio State’s 29-7 win over the Wolverines on Saturday, I watched Day closely. Was this the moment — with the entire weight of the world now off his shoulders — where he’d finally blow off some steam? Encourage flag-planting? Say something that would go viral in the postgame news conference? Take a shot at Sherrone Moore? Make a passing comment about cheating? Anything? Nope. Not a single thing. Not even an attempt to run up the score before the game ended.

Day took the high road every opportunity he had, going as far as helping Michigan prevent any flag-planting payback from his own players. It got me thinking — how classy is this man? This is football. You’re supposed to cut loose and celebrate loudly, especially considering your opponent had been torturing you for the past four years. Day also probably believes Michigan cheated to beat him in the past, too. The Internet would have eaten up anything he did up. People wouldn’t have even blamed him.

But winning was enough payback for him. He left Ann Arbor smiling, knowing now there’s nothing negative anyone could say about him or his program. He made that point, all while representing himself and his program with class.

Hat’s off to you, Ryan. I’ve been critical of you quite a bit the last four years. I’ve been the first to write that Ohio State deserved more after the Michigan losses. Today, like everyone else, I’ve got nothing but glowing things to say about you. You earned it.

8. Ohio State: Since losing to Michigan last year, Ohio State has won 16 consecutive games. It won four College Football Playoff games in a row on the way to capturing the national title. Now it’s 12-0 heading into the Big Ten Championship. Over those 16 games, seven of the wins came over ranked opponents. Ohio State recruits the best. It develops the best. It deploys NIL dollars the best. It wins the most. Now it’s in position to go back-to-back at the beginning of an era in college football that has had more parity than any other era before it. Is this the best program in college football during the NIL era? Did Day supplant Kirby Smart as college football’s premier coach?

9. Michigan: Michigan was on top of the world for four seasons, including one year in which it won the national title. But as it tends to do in sports, the pendulum swung back in the other direction. Michigan fans are probably sad right now. They are frustrated with Moore, who didn’t field a team in year two that could be competitive with the Buckeyes. Why spend all that money on Bryce Underwood if you can’t field a functional offense? Some of that is warranted, but a lot of it is overreaction to no longer being able to claim you’re on top of the Big Ten food chain.

There is hope to return, though. Yes, Ohio State is a juggernaut, but this is a huge offseason. Get some receivers. Invest in more good players. Develop Underwood into a better player and come back stronger next year. The gap between Michigan and Ohio State is nowhere near as wide as it was during the Urban Meyer era in Columbus. You can fix this. And you can fix this fast.

10. Two Group of 5 teams in the CFP? Most casual college football fans believe there are four spots reserved for the highest-ranked power conference champions. That’s now how it works. So in a world where a five-loss Duke team is going into the ACC title game facing Virginia, what happens if the Blue Devils win? Are they in the CFP?

Not so fast. While we’ve been assuming the G5 representative in the CFP will come from the American champ, which will either be Tulane or North Texas, but James Madison may be alive in the postseason race. There is a legit possibility the CFP Committee would opt to take James Madison over Duke as one of those automatic qualifiers, opening the door for the first-ever (and almost impossible) scenario where two G5 teams make the CFP. A lot still has to happen. Duke actually has to beat Virginia. But this sport keeps getting crazier and crazier. And while there’s uncertainty, the Sun Belt should be plastering Dukes over Duke propaganda all over the web.

11. The ACC: While watching Cal beat SMU late Saturday night — the game that opened the door for Duke to make it to the ACC Championship Game — I actually had a thought that commissioner Jim Phillips should step in and change the dumb tiebreaker rules. The commissioner’s job is to keep the conference’s best interests at heart. The conference’s best interests? Promote the teams that have the highest likelihood of making noise in the CFP. That team this year, like or not, is Miami. And it’s absolutely absurd that the conference’s stupid tiebreaker rules are the reason the Hurricanes could be left out of the CFP altogether. Do what the Big Ten did during the COVID-19 season and change the rules. But …

12. That would be hypocritical: There hasn’t been another national reporter who has been more outspoken about the mistreatment of Miami by the CFP Committee. We’re not going to dive into why again right now, but I’m a big believer in consistent thinking. If I think the games have to matter — which is why Miami is inappropriately ranked — then how could I also think Duke’s accomplishment of making it to the ACC title game should be stripped by a last-second rule change? Whether the rule is dumb or not, Duke did what it had to on the field to earn this opportunity.

13. The CFP dilemma: We’re at the time of year where we have to calculate who has clinched a spot in the CFP and try to sift through the bubble teams. According to my calculations, eight teams are already in the CFP regardless of what happens next weekend: Ohio State, Indiana, Georgia, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Oregon, Oklahoma and Ole Miss. There are two more bids that are already spoken for that’ll go to the American champ (Tulane or UNT) and either the winner of the ACC or, gulp, JMU.

That means there are two spots up for grabs and a bunch of teams feel entitled to them. Those teams are Notre Dame, Alabama (who is most likely in already), BYU, Miami, Vanderbilt and Texas. If you asked 100 college football fans which two should earn a spot, you’d probably get 50 different combinations.

14. Broken hearts: The CFP Committee is going to break more hearts than last year. We had some outrage from SEC fans a year ago on Selection Sunday, but when you look at the teams who were left out — Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina, all with three losses — the final choices made by the Committee were just. This year, there are some impossible choices and no matter how it shakes out, a large portion of the college football fan base is going to feel slighted.

15. CFP expansion: College football is currently deliberating over whether the CFP should expand. I hate the idea so much, not only because I want to protect the little sanctity the regular season still has left, but to save us all the exhaustion of arguments looming around the corner if 24 teams get in. If you think it’s too hard to find the right teams to put in this year, imagine the cluster it would become when 8-4 teams start having cases. That would be a literal disaster. The more you lower the bar for getting in, the more average teams will feel slighted. It would be best for the sport to stay at 12.

16. Texas: CFP inclusion arguments are malleable. Fans take portions of the entire picture that support their arguments and only use the ones that make their favorite team look the best. But in Texas’ case, I can’t help but sympathize with its argument. Texas likely isn’t getting into the CFP because it has three losses. But one of those losses is to Ohio State, the best team in college football, to which the Longhorns only lost by seven in the season-opener. Had Texas played an overmatched opponent in that spot instead, it would be 10-2 and already locked in for a CFP berth.

On one hand, winning the games on your schedule is important. When you play Ohio State, you’re taking a risk that does have major upside. If you win that game, it gives you a mulligan later in the season if you were to lose to, say, Florida. If you lose to Ohio State, it could keep you out. You know what you’re signing up for if you schedule that game.

On the other hand, Texas is indeed being punished for playing it. People like to say it is being punished for losing to Florida. That makes sense. But Texas had to play Florida and didn’t have to play Ohio State. So, in reality, regardless of the verbal gymnastics people want to play, the Longhorns are being penalized for playing Ohio State because that game was optional. I hope that teams will continue to see the upside in playing those games and not cower in a corner because they are afraid of losing them.

The SEC and Texas are going to weaponize this and threaten to schedule bad games moving forward. That’s what happened at the end of last year. And while I sympathize with Texas — a team with the best collection of wins in the sport — it really only has itself to blame. If we’re all being honest with each other, Texas spent the majority of the year looking pretty bad. There are consequences for that.

17. Vanderbilt: Diego Pavia is entering next week as one of the three Heisman Trophy favorites alongside Ohio State’s Julian Sayin and Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza. On Saturday, he led the Commodores to an emphatic 45-24 win on the road at Tennessee, a statement victory that helped the program win 10 games for the first time in its history. Vanderbilt should be so proud of what it accomplished this year.

It also needs to prepare itself for missing the CFP. Though Vanderbilt has 10 wins, its resume doesn’t stack up to some of the bubble teams vying for those final two spots. Which means in this system, we are going to leave out a 10-win team with a Heisman candidate quarterback. Buckle up. Next Sunday is going to be bumpy.

18. Not enough CFP teams: It feels like we have too many CFP teams, which is going to cause a problem for the committee. Want to know the truth? We don’t have enough to fill out the 12, and the bottom half is hard to sift through because we’re debating about a bunch of very good — not elite — teams. As you get into 10-2 and 9-3 candidates, the line of demarcation between those teams becomes increasingly harder to see. The truly excellent ones — the ones who handled their business fully during the regular season — are easy to spot. The four-team CFP may have been a worse system for inclusion purposes. But it was a superior system for demanding excellence during the regular season even to be worthy of a chance to compete to win it all. Instead, we’re left debating which teams’ losses are less embarrassing before we throw the final two or three teams into the field.

19. Mark Stoops: According to On3’s Chris Low, former Kentucky coach Mark Stoops — who was fired late Sunday evening — worked with the program to negotiate new buyout terms so the $38 million that was owed to him didn’t have to be paid in the next 60 days. That was mature behavior from one of the best football coaches in Kentucky football history. I know the last few years didn’t go the way he would have liked, but Stoops made Kentucky relevant in the SEC again and he did a phenomenal job in his position. I hope as time passes, he’s remembered fondly by Wildcats fans.

20. Sunday: Is college football just The Bachelor or Love Island with games on Saturdays in the fall? Sunday was one of the craziest days imaginable in the sport. We got everything between hirings, firings and pictures of Kiffin’s wardrobe being left outside after he bolted to LSU. We love football. We love the games. But college football’s eccentric nature — no, its craziness — is what makes following it so intoxicating. It’s dysfunctional on the field as we can’t properly crown conference champions without dumb tiebreakers and a coach’s dramatic exit ends with his wardrobe being left outside like a scorned spouse. The sport is absolutely electric.