If you’re among the fanbases who’ll miss out on Lane Kiffin, here are 5 stats to help you cope
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I’ve got some breaking news on Lane Kiffin. It’s the type of news that will upset plenty of people, and it’ll be considered the type of development that’ll make it hard to be optimistic about 2026.
Kiffin is about to upset 2 SEC fanbases.
Well, we’re assuming Kiffin doesn’t go rogue and take the Penn State job, or decide that he’s taking his talents to the moon (I hear the boosters are even crazier there than the ones we’ve got on earth). In the likely event that Kiffin can’t coach at Florida, LSU and Ole Miss, at least 2 SEC fanbases are about to get their hearts broken. And hey, let’s throw Auburn in there for fun. After all, that’s the job that Kiffin nearly took until his daughter, Landry, put together the sentimental slideshow that changed history.
Ultimately, someone will come up short in their pitch of Kiffin, who reportedly has until the Egg Bowl on Nov. 28 to decide if he’s staying at Ole Miss (he’s since denied that he is on a deadline). They’ll be wondering how he turned down their ideal situation where he could’ve been a legend. Apply that jaded sentiment to any of those aforementioned SEC teams.
But as Kiffin steers directly into a recruitment unlike any in recent memory, I thought I’d help with the inevitable coping that’ll be needed to stomach such a loss.
These 5 anti-Kiffin stats will help with that:
1. Kiffin has 1 true road win vs. a Power Conference AP Top 25 team since the SEC expanded to 14 teams
That’s right. I said 14 teams, not 16. Since the start of 2012, Kiffin’s lone true road win vs. a Power Conference AP Top 25 team came a few weeks ago at No. 13 Oklahoma. Yes, he also beat a ranked Tulane team on the road in Sept. 2023, though that was with the Green Wave playing a backup quarterback. In the last 14 seasons (including this one), Kiffin is 2-12 vs. AP Top 25 teams in true road games.
In that stretch, Billy Napier was 1-14 in those matchups as an FBS head coach, and Sam Pittman was 1-13. That’s extremely similar to Kiffin, though with a different price tag. Just for a little perspective, even Steve Sarkisian is 7-10 in those spots since 2012, and Josh Heupel, who always gets reminded about his road issues, is 4-8 in those spots. Shoot, even Kalen DeBoer is 8-2 lifetime vs. AP Top 25 teams in true road games.
If you’re getting paid 8 figures on an annual basis like Kiffin figures to with this inevitable new contract that he’ll sign — he’s currently making $9 million annually — your legacy is defined by whether you can win those types of games. There are 25 active FBS coaches with at least 3 wins vs. AP Top 25 teams in true road games, and Kiffin isn’t one of them.
That’ll be a major trend for him to flip wherever he coaches in 2026.
2. Kiffin has never started and finished as an AP Top 10 team
Two times, Kiffin led a team that started in the top 10. The 2012 USC squad infamously went from preseason No. 1 to falling to 7-6 after a loss in the Sun Bowl, while the 2024 Ole Miss squad started No. 6 and posted top-3 finishes in scoring offense and scoring defense, but lost 3 games by a combined 13 points and missed the 12-team Playoff.
Kiffin had 3 teams start as top-15 teams, and they went a combined 25-14 with 2 unranked finishes. Sure, 2 of those were at USC, who had more roster limitations post-NCAA sanctions than the casual fan (or even USC decision makers) might care to acknowledge, but this is perhaps the most important question to ask if and when Kiffin makes his decision for 2026.
How will he handle massive expectations?
That’s what’ll follow him wherever he goes. To this point in his career, he’s been better at exceeding a low bar than meeting a high one, which is perhaps why he’s been such a godsend at Ole Miss, where he became the first coach in program history to deliver 3 consecutive 10-win seasons. He’s got 4 such seasons in Oxford, and 3 of them were with teams who didn’t even start in the top 20 of the AP Poll.
Kirby Smart has 7 consecutive seasons of starting and finishing as an AP Top 10 team, while Ryan Day has done that 6 times (he’ll make it 7 this year). Dabo Swinney did it 6 times at Clemson, and fellow top-dollar coaches like Dan Lanning, Marcus Freeman and Sarkisian have each done it once. It’s the type of thing that next-tier coaches like Mario Cristobal and Heupel haven’t quite been able to do yet. Brian Kelly couldn’t do it at LSU, which is ultimately why that job is vacant. Sometimes, that’s still not enough. James Franklin has done it twice, and he got the boot.
Kiffin’s ability (or inability) to do this will define the next chapter of his career.
3. In 14 seasons as a head coach, Jaxson Dart leads Kiffin-produced quarterbacks with 17 career NFL touchdowns
Also of note, Dart is a rookie who wasn’t QB1 to start the season, and he’s also injured. It took less than half a season for Dart to best previous NFL touchdowns leader among Kiffin-produced quarterbacks, Matt Barkley, who had 12 career scores as a journeyman backup. In other words, Dart is already the best NFL QB that Kiffin produced in 14 years as a head coach.
What does it matter if Kiffin just cranks out elite offenses, you ask? It’s a fair question. After all, if Kiffin can take a Division II transfer like Trinidad Chambliss and turn him into a Heisman Trophy candidate, who cares if he isn’t lining up NFL quarterbacks like Lincoln Riley? Plus, if Dart succeeds in the NFL, doesn’t that push back against the notion that Kiffin’s scheme is too college-centric for a quarterback to make that transition at the next level?
Yep, that’s totally fair. But ask yourself this — wouldn’t Kiffin be more attractive to decorated high school and portal quarterbacks if there wasn’t any discourse about that?
Kiffin’s last 5-star quarterback he signed was Max Browne in 2013. He inherited Matt Corral and he signed Dart from USC out of the portal after he flashed as a true freshman, albeit for a Trojans squad who had a lame duck coaching staff. At Ole Miss, Kiffin hasn’t really both signed and developed a high school quarterback recruit. Once, that was supposed to be Marcel Reed, then he flipped to Texas A&M just before National Signing Day in 2023. Then, it was supposed to be Austin Simmons, but when he got his shot earlier this season as a redshirt sophomore, multiple first-quarter interceptions in his first 2 starts and an ankle injury opened the door for Chambliss.
Again, Kiffin’s quarterbacks all produce. That’s not the knock. The knock is that he can’t really sit with a decorated high school quarterback recruit and sell that NFL path.
4. At Ole Miss, he’s 4-12 when his teams are held to 25 points or less
Even Riley is 5-8 when his teams have been held to 25 points or less in the 2020s. It’s essentially the same mark as offensive-minded coaches like Heupel (4-13) and Kenny Dillingham (5-13). It makes sense given their background that there’s a certain style of game that Kiffin would prefer to win that would differ from the defensive-minded Smart, who is 9-6 when his team has been held to 25 or less in the 2020s. That’s obvious.
(It’ll come as no surprise that Kirk Ferentz leads FBS with 18 wins when held to 25 points or less in the 2020s.)
And yes, it’s a positive that Kiffin’s Ole Miss teams are 50-7 when they score at least 26 points. You’ll take that all day, every day. That’s what you’re signing up for if you hire an elite offensive mind like Kiffin.
But to win at an elite level, you’d like to be able to win in a variety of ways. Ole Miss watched its Playoff dreams die in 2024 because it was stuck on 17 points in 2 of those losses, and when the Rebels were held to 26 in the overtime loss at LSU, that was after failing to score a second-half touchdown. It’s unrealistic to expect Kiffin to win 2/3 of his games without hitting 26 points like Nick Saban did in 17 seasons at Alabama, or like Day has since he took over at Ohio State in 2019. It is, however, realistic to expect Kiffin to get that number closer to .500, which is where the offensive-minded Jeff Brohm is (10-11 in those games in the 2020s).
Kiffin appears to have righted the defensive issues that plagued his first few seasons at Ole Miss. Now, he just has to be better at winning games when the offense isn’t humming.
5. He’s never coached in a Power Conference championship or a Playoff game, and every other 8-figure coach has done both
Well, with the exception of Bill Belichick. The whole “9 Super Bowl appearances as a head coach” sort of covers that.
Here’s the list of the other 8 coaches who made at least $10 million in 2025 (via USA Today):
- Kirby Smart
- Ryan Day
- Lincoln Riley
- Dabo Swinney
- Steve Sarkisian
- Dan Lanning
- Kalen DeBoer
- Brian Kelly
And yes, we need to mention that Kiffin’s 2011 USC squad would’ve accomplished that feat if not for the postseason ban from the Pete Carroll era NCAA sanctions. That needs to be mentioned here because it was indeed the preamble for the aforementioned 2012 USC squad that earned a preseason No. 1 ranking. We also need to mention that Kiffin’s current squad is also on the brink of a Playoff berth, and it still will have an outside (but unlikely) shot at reaching the SEC Championship Game, which is something Ole Miss has never done in the 33-year history of the event.
But it’s a stat worth referencing because Kiffin is likely going to have to make that destination decision before we ever see him on that stage. Being on that stage as an assistant, like he was at USC and Alabama, is entirely different than competing for a conference title or in the Playoff. It’s not that Kiffin is destined to shrink in those moments. It’s that there’s not even a sample size to project that. He’s coached in 2 BCS/New Year’s 6 Bowls, 1 of which saw Corral suffer a game-ending injury in the 1st quarter, and the other was a blowout win vs. Penn State in the 2023 Peach Bowl.
If Kiffin leaves Ole Miss, he’ll be judged on whether he can win a title. Period. If he stays at Ole Miss, he’ll still be defined by reaching new heights like reaching the Playoff and perhaps advancing to the semifinals.
Whatever Kiffin chooses will be seen as a massive victory for that fanbase, and understandably so. He’s earned that right after reestablishing himself as one of the top coaches in the sport.
But maybe not all is lost for the fanbase(s) who misses out on the top prize.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
