Lane Kiffin just officially blew up the coaching model.

No more patience. No more building and growing and developing until everything aligns, and you get a few breaks and the next thing you know you’ve got a special season.

Nope. Not anymore.

If we learned one thing from No. 14 Ole Miss’ thrilling 22-19 win over No. 7 Kentucky on Saturday, it’s this: With the advent of the transfer portal, you can win big right now in college football.

The lifespan of every coaching contract just went from 2, 3 or even 4 years of patience to prove it now or lose it.

“We don’t all of a sudden have everything figured out,” Kiffin said in his postgame press conference. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

But the groundwork has been laid, the roadmap unfolded. Want to win now? Embrace the transfer portal.

Less than 30 minutes after Ole Miss improved to 5-0, Kiffin opened his phone and hopped on Twitter and retweeted a celebration of the Ole Miss coaching box and simply stated: “Transfer to the Sip.”

Truer words haven’t been spoken since the NCAA developed this perfect storm of free player movement with the transfer portal and unchecked NIL largess.

That was Jared Ivey, blowing by the overmatched Kentucky offensive line in the final minute and stripping quarterback Will Levis of the ball, Tavius Robinson recovered and Kiffin had his biggest win in 3 seasons in Oxford.

Ivey played the past 2 years at Georgia Tech. Robinson played in Canada 2 years ago.

Zach Evans scored the game’s first touchdown for Ole Miss, and is one of the SEC’s best tailbacks. He played the past 2 seasons at TCU.

Jonathan Cruz hit what was the game-winning field goal from 26 yards with 2 minutes to play in the 3rd quarter, and hit from 56 earlier in the game. He played the previous 4 seasons at Charlotte.

Michael Trigg, who caught a critical 3rd-and-15 ball for 19 yards to extend a 4th quarter drive and keep the surging Kentucky offensive off the field, played at USC last season. The guy who threw him the ball, quarterback Jaxson Dart, threw for 213 yards and ran for 40. He, too, played at USC last season.

Ivey had a sack and forced a fumble. Linebacker Troy Brown, who spent the past 4 seasons at Central Michigan, led the team in tackles (9) and had a table for loss and a half sack.

Malik Heath had 6 catches for 100 yards, and he played the past 2 years at Mississippi State. Defensive tackle JJ Pegues, who played the past 2 seasons at Auburn, was a force in the middle against the run and had 3 solo tackles.

Old school transfer Otis Reese, a physical and punishing safety, arrived at Ole Miss in 2020 and sat out a season, played well last season and has emerged as one of the SEC’s best players in 2022.

And on and on and on.

Everywhere you look on the Ole Miss roster, there’s a critical transfer portal addition who helped fill holes from last year’s breakout 10-win season.

The offense has skill players and dynamic speed from the portal, and a quarterback who is growing with each game. The defense, an afterthought in Kiffin’s first season in Oxford in 2020, is now one of the best in the nation — with a nucleus of transfer portal players.

Ole Miss has allowed all of 59 points this season (11.8 ppg.), its 2nd-fewest allowed points through the first 5 games over the past 30 years.

I don’t want to minimize the impact of Kiffin with a blanket statement that anyone can recruit the portal and win big. He also is landing critical high school recruits — TB Quinshon Judkins, CB Davison Igbinosun, S Tysheem Johnson — and is more than just the “Portal King.”

But it most certainly will be the bar moving forward for any athletic director. That’s Oxford, that’s what I want.

But understand this: It’s more than just plucking players from the portal and mixing and matching and winning games. What Kiffin is accomplishing at Ole Miss is part marketer, part carnival barker, and full-time player acquisition and development — the latter being the most critical (and least likely to replicate).

Kiffin is the same guy who got Ole Miss to the Sugar Bowl last year, then strolled on the sidelines for 60 minutes with a sweater that read, “Come to the Sip.”

The same guy who won a national championship as OC at Alabama with Jacob Coker playing quarterback. The same guy who turned Matt Corral from petulant talent to All-American candidate and NFL Draft pick.

So, yeah, the portal gives Kiffin and Ole Miss the ability to upgrade immediately. But the portal is only part of Kiffin’s growth as a coach: from the guy who had his head buried in his call sheet at USC, to the guy who is making every right move at Ole Miss.

Like elevating Chris Partridge to defensive coordinator, and adding Maurice Crum as co-coordinator. They’ve built on the turnaround DJ Durkin began last season, and have the unit playing smarter and more aggressively — all while assimilating the new portal players.

Kiffin lost OC Jeff Lebby to Oklahoma after last season and hired Charlie Weis Jr. — who was with him at FAU — and gave him a new quarterback, 3 new tailbacks, a new tight end and a couple of new wide receivers and said, make it work. And he did.

Now look: Ole Miss is unbeaten, and set up for a 7-0 start (at Vanderbilt, Auburn) before a brutal 5-game stretch to finish the season. But at this point, any game is reachable — even Alabama, which travels to Oxford on Nov. 12.

“It’s one game,” Kiffin said. “Looking at the games is what a coach does. That can go either way.”

They’ve gone Ole Miss’ way 16 of the past 19 times. That’s not hit or miss.

That’s a plan and action.

That’s blowing up the coaching model.