LSU coach Brian Kelly became the third SEC coach to be fired in less than a month Sunday evening, joining Sam Pittman’s and Billy Napier’s dismissals from Arkansas and Florida.
And Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has been widely considered among the hottest names to watch among candidates for a growing list of vacancies — including the one in Baton Rouge — in what increasingly looks poised to be an offseason of major shakeup across not only the league, but the country.
Kiffin has the No. 7 Rebels (7-1, 4-1) squarely in the hunt for a College Football Playoff opportunity following a road win at No. 18 Oklahoma (6-2, 2-2) on Saturday and with a remaining regular-season slate in which they will not leave Mississippi or face another ranked opponent.
And he was asked Monday to share his thoughts on the Tigers’ move and shifts overall around the conference.
“Very surprising,” he told reporters during his weekly Monday press conference. “I mean, it’s the college world we’re living in now. We really, if you think about it, when you talk about the players now are like NFL players how they’re paid, and now I feel like the college coaches now are more like NFL coaches where the firings happen quicker. NFL coaches, you see all the time, they get one or two years, and you’ll be like well in college that doesn’t happen because it’s harder to build a roster and they give you more time. So that’s obviously not the case now.
“And I think that’s a product of things that happen. I think that (Mike) Elko doing such a great job at A&M puts in people’s heads that, ‘Hey, these buyouts are ridiculous to pay (Jimbo Fisher’s $77 million buyout),’ but I’m sure at A&M right now sitting there going, ‘OK, well, yeah, that was ridiculous to pay, but we feel pretty good about that right now.’ So anytime something works, other people go, ‘Well, let’s go do that.’ So I think that’s happened. And once it now has places accepting to pay these buyouts, which I think is ridiculous, but that it’s happening, then it’s easier for the next team and the next team to do it.”
