The “we want Lane!” chants that broke out in the final minute of No. 7 Ole Miss’ comeback win against Florida Saturday night were loud and clear on ESPN’s broadcast.
In another moment, cameras showed Florida fans donning orange and blue shirts that read, “Please Lane Come to Gainesville.”
But Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, the rumored top candidate for Florida’s head coaching vacancy, downplayed the situation following his team’s thrilling 34-24 win.
Asked after the win about his future in Oxford, Kiffin told reporters that it’d be “disrespectful” to the team to entertain the question moments after the Rebels captured their 10th win of the season.
“I love what we’re doing here,” Kiffin said, according to ESPN. “Today was awesome. To even talk about it right now would be so disrespectful to our players and how well they played today. We’ve got a lot of things going here. Doing really well, and I love it here.”
Kiffin also said the speculation hasn’t been a distraction.
“We’ve been dealing with what people would say are distractions for weeks now,” said Kiffin, who’s in his sixth season at Ole Miss. “It’s different nowadays. I think kids think differently.
“They’re getting pre-portaled every Saturday night they play well. I just talk to them and say, ‘That’s part of the process. When you guys play really well, these things happen, your coach gets talked about,’ and it ain’t the first time or first year that it’s happened around here. I don’t think it’s a problem.”
Florida fired Billy Napier last month after the Gators looked abysmal in a win against Mississippi State to open the season 3-4.
In his three-plus seasons, the Gators were bowl eligible twice but never won more than eight games in a campaign.
Wide receivers coach Billy Gonzales took over on an interim basis, and the Gators haven’t won a game since falling to 3-7 on the season Saturday.
Meanwhile, Kiffin has Ole Miss playing its best five-year stretch in program history, with the Rebels winning at least 10 games in four of those five seasons.
Ole Miss is in position this season to earn a College Football Playoff berth, too.
With plenty of other enticing jobs available, including LSU, Florida, the Giants and the Titans, Kiffin hasn’t outwardly stated whether he’ll be back at Ole Miss next season.
If he were to go elsewhere, it’d be a huge loss for the Rebels — something those in and around the program don’t want to think about at this point of the season.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
