Is Anyone the Winner in SEC Head Coach Carousel Centered on Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin?

Amid a historic season for the No. 6 Ole Miss Rebels in which the 10-1 team is on the path for their first-ever College Football Playoff appearance, the storylines and focus are on anything but.

As Rebels’ head coach Lane Kiffin plays an elongated version of “Should I Stay or Should I Go” with the team he’s currently coaching, it all runs the risk of ending those hopes off the field. In fact, there are now rumblings that the team could drop in the eyes of the CFP committee with the uncertainty surrounding Kiffin’s future at Ole Miss.

Currently, Kiffin is linked to the openings with the Florida Gators and LSU Tigers. There may even be some pushing behind the scenes by those programs to force his hand, as On3 Sports falsely reported Wednesday that a meeting was scheduled between another sitting head coach, Tulane Green Wave’s Jon Sumrall, and the Gators for their opening.

That was decisively shot down, so there’s a bit of a credibility issue with On3 and their updates on head coach search rumblings. But they did dig into the potential implications of this drawn-out process.

Chris Low reports that a former playoff committee spoke with On3 (subscription required) and brought up the possibility of the Rebels falling down the seeding order as a result of the uncertainty at head coach.

“If you’re suddenly without your head coach when they do the final seeding, the coach who’s gotten you to that point, then they could definitely drop you in the seeding order and put you on the road,” the former playoff committee member said. “If Ole Miss is 11-1, (Kiffin) not being there isn’t going to keep them out of the playoff. That’s not going to happen, but the seeding part could be a problem if it’s close.”

And there’s precedent set by the committee to knock down programs who lose “key players and coaches” – one of their factors listed on the official CFP website – as they left the unbeaten Florida State Seminoles out of the playoff entirely due to starting quarterback Jordan Travis’s injury making him unavailable to play.

Every year, the coaching carousel puts successful teams in disarray. But it continues to creep further into postseason implications by the year. With how early the top SEC openings became available this season, the distracting outside noise that usually started around Weeks 12-13 started more like Week 10 this time around. It used to be a four-team playoff, leaving most of the head coach departures to affect Conference Championship matchups foremost, often leading to losses and a poor Bowl performance.

Now that the College Football Playoff has expanded to 16 teams, and runs considerably into January, we’re seeing a real issue with the calendar in college football. But we’re also seeing an issue with how it’s being handled at the top at the expense of the players on the team. Sure, it’s the NIL era now, and player-coach relationships just don’t exist to the same degree.

However, when players are recruited to a roster, they should fairly expect to finish that season out at minimum with that coach who got them there, firings not included. Some might say that’s naïve at this point. It might be for Group of Five programs that see success and should expect to lose their head coach. But a potentially playoff-bound SEC team?

What message does that send to fans asking to donate to the NIL funds to keep players around for a playoff push that may be torpedoed by losing their head coach? Why should the players who fought to rest their bodies in a first-round bye have to suffer because their coach can’t decide his future?

That’s not to say Kiffin’s necessarily doing anything wrong or dragging the process out more than necessary. But it’s pretty clear that he’ll either be coaching LSU, Florida, or Ole Miss next season. The decision may very well be eating at him. But if it has playoff seeding implications, it’s one he needs to come to and give his team a shot to fight for their bye, or at least have time to prepare to play under an interim head coach before the postseason.

It's been reported widely that athletic director Keith Carter and Ole Miss administrators want an answer from Kiffin before game week starts for the Egg Bowl against Mississippi State. It’s hard to blame them for wanting that clarity should seeding be affected.

But it’s also hard to blame Kiffin, or the schools wanting his services. The No. 1 issue is the deadline of the transfer portal on Jan. 2 immediately after the quarterfinals. Teams who make the final round of the playoff can enter the portal after it ends on Jan. 20. Why can’t that simply be the portal window if exceptions have already been made?

Then at least the original team losing their head coach has a fighting chance to be a winner in one metric. Because while Kiffin’s team may potentially make the final game, LSU and Florida certainly aren’t, making their window open Jan. 2 – a day after a potential quarterfinals win for Ole Miss.