OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin will wait until after next week’s regular-season finale against Mississippi State to announce his next move, which will likely be a departure to take over at Florida or LSU.
Either situation would keep him in the Southeastern Conference but force Ole Miss to begin its search for a new leader even with the Rebels potentially preparing for a playoff game.
Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter released a statement Friday saying a decision on Kiffin’s future is expected Nov. 29, the day after the Rebels face the Bulldogs in Starkville for the annual matchup of Magnolia State rivals known as the Egg Bowl.
It could be an agonizing wait for the Tigers in Baton Rouge, the Gators in Gainesville and the Rebels in Oxford, although most outsiders believe Kiffin staying for a seventh season at Ole Miss is a long shot. Kiffin, 50, is 54-19 overall and 31-7 against SEC competition during his Ole Miss tenure, and the Rebels are 10-1 overall and 6-1 in league play this season, fifth in this week’s AP Top 25 poll, and No. 6 in the College Football Playoff selection committee’s most recent rankings released Tuesday night.
The Rebels have never made the SEC championship game, which dates to 1992, or the CFP, which began in 2014 and expanded to a 12-team bracket last season after a decade with a four-team format. Both are a possibility this season, but so is the chance that Kiffin could move on either way.