Ole Miss football head coach Lane Kiffin talks new contract: “This was not just about me.”
Plenty of good news has rolled in over the last 24 hours for Ole Miss fans, starting with Lane Kiffin deciding to stay in Oxford a little while longer.
Seconds after the SEC Championship game concluded, Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter announced that the second-year Ole Miss coach and the school had agreed on a new contract.
The financial terms of the contract were not disclosed, but as per Mississippi state law limiting contracts for state employees to a maximum of four years, the new contract will keep Kiffin at Ole Miss through 2025.
The second piece of good news came on Sunday when Ole Miss officially received their berth to this season’s Sugar Bowl.
During a teleconference with both Kiffin and Baylor head coach Dave Aranda, the former touched on his fresh contract and all its moving parts.
“There was a lot of personal stuff involved (with the contract) that was outside of myself and about our program in there,” Kiffin said. “Assistant coaches, administration, support staff and the funding for them so that we can do this at a really high level is in there as well. It wasn’t just some personal contract that a head coach gets paid. There was a lot of work into that.”
Kiffin’s name was tossed around and mentioned with several head coaching vacancies at premier programs such as LSU, Florida, Oklahoma and Miami.
Maybe the most smoke, if it can be called that, was with the Miami job but current head coach Manny Diaz has not, and is still not, fired from that position.
Fans may not have enjoyed the long wait for the announcement of a new contract, but Kiffin noted it was a process that did not start at the end of the regular season.
“Sometimes people don’t understand, these things have sometimes been in the works for a while,” Kiffin said of his new contract. “This had been (in the works) a long time and just happened to be finalized (on Saturday).
“This was not just about me. This was a lot of getting things in place, which Keith and (Ole Miss Chancellor Glenn Boyce) were all about. We just had to get it all talked about and it takes time. A big part of that is making sure things are in place in the future for the players. From a facilities standpoint and for the coaches to make sure we’re able to keep these guys around and compete at the highest level.”
Then some not-so-happy news for Ole Miss fans came out on Sunday as reports began surfacing that offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby might be heading for Oklahoma in the same capacity.
Current Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables is reported to become the next head coach at Oklahoma and the caveat with the report is Lebby is a top target addition for his staff.
The Ole Miss Spirit has reported that Ole Miss is working to keep Lebby, offering a new multi-year contract that is around $2 million per year.
“I don’t take it personal. It’s part of the business when you’re doing really well,” Kiffin said. “The players are playing really well, your assistant coaches, and people want to come get them. … It’s a good problem to have and one we have to deal with and we’ll always find the best ones out there. There’s a good chance we may lose one this year.”
