By Chris Marler
Lane Kiffin spent the entire offseason in Oxford stockpiling talent for the 2024 season. The transfer portal era of college football has become an arms race for teams trying to make the College Football Playoff or make a quick turnaround for their program. Ole Miss was one of the biggest players in that game.
I compared teams like Ole Miss and Miami’s portal commitments, and commitment to the portal, to MLB teams making moves right before the trade deadline for a postseason run. Both teams were all-in on this season.
For Miami, the season is still intact, and frankly much easier to navigate due to their ACC schedule. For Ole Miss, not so much.
After Saturday night’s loss to LSU, Ole Miss is now 5-2. They came into the LSU game with a 58.3 percent chance of making the college football playoff, but after losing their second consecutive game those odds dropped to 23.6 percent which is behind 19 other teams. The Rebels still have to face Georgia in early November.
Now is when the real test begins for Ole Miss. Kiffin heads into the bye week and the final five games of the seaso having to keep a roster full of college football mercenaries focused and committed to playing with the championship goals on life support. Meanwhile, the rumors of him leaving for a potential job opening in Gainesville will only heat up, regardless of how real or fake they are.
Perhaps the biggest contradiction of this whole situation is that Lane Kiffin is going to have to try and keep his players committed to something despite being a leader who tends to leave, or at least threaten to leave, when things get toughest.
How do you keep what you built for this season intact when everything you have to play for has fallen apart? We’re about to find out. And, if Kiffin wants to keep this thing from falling completely apart and players leaving for greener pastures, he’s going to have to do something he’s rarely done in his career – stay committed as well.
