USA Today claims Lane Kiffin-Florida rumor ‘enhanced’ after Ole Miss’s first loss

The possibility of Lane Kiffin taking the Flordia job is “enhanced” after Ole Miss’s first loss of the season on September 28 to Kentucky according to USA Today’s Matt Hayes .

“Deny it all you want, everyone,” Hayes prefaced before saying, “This shotgun marriage now has momentum.Before we go further, Kiffin is absolutely right. The idea that Ole Miss is a fraud, or got exposed or can’t win a big game because of one bad Saturday is wildly shortsighted. But there’s no chance that’s stopping this train of what-if. If anything, it enhanced it.”

CBS Sports’ Josh Pate claimed before the Rebels’ home loss to the Wildcats that Kiffin would take the Gators job “in a heartbeat.”

"(Kiffin would leave Florida for Ole Miss) In a heartbeat," Pate said during the September 11 edition of Crain & Company . "Lane Kiffin would walk to Florida if they would give him the job. This is not a debate. I've got Ole Miss people in my very close social circle and they fight me on this. They're like 'What can you do at Florida that you can't do at Ole Miss?'

"Win a national championship, that's what you can do there. And you can consistently be a player there. Contrary to what people believe about Ole Miss, that is still a build multiple years to a peak kind of program. A window program as I call them. They're not sustained year in and year out. They're just not that kind of program. Florida can be."

Things could go from bad to worse for Ole Miss quickly

Ole Miss does not have a schedule with a loss-to-Kentucky carveout. LSU, Oklahoma, and Georgia is the kind of stretch that can keep the Rebels out of the College Football Playoff mix. It might not have had Mississippi gotten the job done against a so-so Wildcats team.

That’s not the reality we live in, though.

It feels like Kiffin is slipping away from the Sip with every shocking disappointment. The Rebels didn’t have it for many years and he was still rumored for greener pastures in Auburn back in 2022.

Now, the clock is seemingly ticking until Kiffin is running the Gators.