On Saturday, the Florida Gators will take on the Ole Miss Rebels in the 2025 Lane Kiffin Bowl. The Gators have to win out to make an actual bowl game, while Ole Miss is looking to lock up a playoff berth for the first time.
But the backdrop to this game is whether or not Lane Kiffin is going to stay in Oxford or whether he will hop on a plane and join the Gators back in Gainesville.
Maybe he bolts, maybe he stays, but there has been a notable shift in the level of confidence among Ole Miss fans that the latter will happen as they slowly realize what Florida fans have been trying to tell them all along.
Lane Kiffin rumblings continue
The five stages of grief are:
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
If one has followed the online war between Ole Miss and Florida fans over the last month, there is a segment starting to hit the acceptance stage.
When Kiffin's name first popped up as a candidate for the Florida vacancy, the argument from Ole Miss fans was, "Why would he want to leave here? Compare Florida and Ole Miss over the past five years."
What it ignores is that Ole Miss is successful because of Lane Kiffin. Prior to Kiffin, Ole Miss had a grand total of four ten-win seasons since 1962. Under Kiffin, Ole Miss is one win away from a fourth ten-win season since 2021.
In his massive profile in Yahoo Sports, Kiffin noted the change Ole Miss has undergone since he arrived:
"I didn’t grow up thinking this was the final chapter of the story."
“Maybe it is.”
But again, rather than state "Yes, this is the final chapter," it's that word "Maybe" that continues to allow this story to grow and continues to plant a seed of doubt into the minds of Ole Miss fans.
Florida has a far more fertile recruiting area to pull from, with three metropolitan areas to pull from within a two-hour drive of campus (Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa). Florida doesn't have to beg fans to show up to games. Florida has built-in brands, marketing opportunities, and reach that Ole Miss can't match.
And so, as Ole Miss insiders are slowly leaning toward Kiffin leaving, Ole Miss fans are slowly accepting they might have to consider a new coach for the 2026 season.