Lane Kiffin talks coaching rumors, as LSU, Florida come open

The top candidate for open jobs across the college football landscape is Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin. The 50 year old is an innovative offensive mind and has built Ole Miss into one of the top football programs in the country in the six seasons he’s been in Oxford. Coming off of a huge road win at Oklahoma, paired with LSU firing Brian Kelly, the heat continues to turn up on Kiffin as he approaches the last stretch of the regular season.

With LSU, Florida and Penn State all having vacancies, and looking to make a splash, it’s Kiffin that now has to handle the spotlight as his team continues to win. One thing that Kiffin made sure to explain on The Pat McAfee Show on Monday afternoon was that money will not influence any decision he makes.

“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. “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. He’s like, ‘We got to get this. We got to get this.’ And, I’m like, ‘Jimmy, I don’t care.’ And he goes, ‘I do!’”

With money not a talking point with Kiffin, the open jobs will be looking to prove that Kiffin can ultimately win big at their schools, with a perceived higher ceiling than Ole Miss. The Rebels are eyeing their first playoff appearance under Kiffin this year and that success could get him to stay, but LSU and Florida both have multiple national championships this century and even Penn State has two in the 80s.

Kiffin was not asked directly about the job openings, but talked about handling the attention and noise with his team and he made sure to take it straight on as his team continues to strive for its ultimate goal.

“I usually don’t talk about it with the team because we’ve dealt with it for a number of years because our players have performed really well and won a lot of games here. This attention has come with that,” Kiffin said. “I thought last week it was important late in the week to address it on Friday because we have so many new players. They hadn’t been here last year or before that to see these job rumors come up. I told them, ‘this is a product of how you guys play. They see the way you play and fans are like we want that system and coach.’ I told them it’s a compliment to them and I think it’s easier nowadays because basically the same thing happens to them. What happens when our freshman receiver has a good game? Saturday night he has three calls from other places telling him to come here and we’ll give you more money before the portal opens. They deal with this all the time, so I don’t think it’s that big of a deal to them. This is just the world they live in.”