O’Gara: Lane Kiffin deserves all the preseason hype … and all the criticism if he misses the Playoff
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Here’s a little rat poison for Lane Kiffin.
When the AP Top 25 is released in a couple of weeks, Ole Miss will likely start with a top-7 ranking. If that happens, it’ll mark the program’s best preseason ranking since the Richard Nixon administration in 1970. A top-7 ranking would also mark the highest preseason ranking for Kiffin since USC was the preseason No. 1 in 2012. That year, Kiffin didn’t just come up short of sustaining that top spot — he didn’t even get out of El Paso with an 8th victory.
OK, that’s not so much rat poison as it is a reminder that all signs point to this being a pivotal year for the Kiffin legacy.
This year, with this team, Kiffin and Ole Miss deserve the preseason love. Established offensive veterans like Jaxson Dart and Tre Harris are one thing, but the work of adding key pieces on the defensive line is why the “portal king” will enter 2024 with his highest set of preseason expectations since 2012.
While preseason rankings and strength of schedule are 2 separate things — at least they should be — the latter certainly has turned this into a “Playoff or bust” season for Ole Miss.
Let’s be clear here. Kiffin earned that preseason rat poison. He’ll also earn a significant demerit on his evolving legacy if he fails to make the 12-team field in 2024.
In his career as a head coach, Kiffin has never started and finished in the top 15 of the AP Poll. The 2023 season marked Kiffin’s second time starting and finishing ranked in the AP Top 25. The only other instance happened when his 2011 USC squad started at No. 25 in the AP Poll, and it closed a 10-win season on a 4-game win streak, which included an upset at No. 4 Oregon. In Kiffin’s first 11 seasons as a head coach, that was his only win against a Power 5 team that went on to win at least 9 regular season games.
But 2023 changed that. Perhaps it even changed Kiffin’s legacy.
Beating an LSU team that went on to win 9 regular season games ended that drought, and the beatdown of 10-win Penn State in the Peach Bowl set the stage for an offseason of hype entering 2024. If this is a new Kiffin, this won’t be 2012 USC all over again. If Ole Miss even goes 8-4, it’ll be fair to wonder if Kiffin will ever break through into that elite tier of coaches. We can have more realistic conversations about his ceiling if that plays out, and why it isn’t ever going to be competing for a national championship. At least not at Ole Miss.
That might sound harsh, but this opportunity is golden. It’s not just that he no longer has to worry about the Nick Saban hurdle at Alabama. The well-documented favorable schedule certainly is fueling some of that hype. How could it not? Kiffin is 30-6 against the non-Alabama/Georgia/LSU squads. In 2023, he’ll face Georgia and LSU, but 5 of the 9 Power Conference opponents missed a bowl game in 2023, and 3 of those 4 bowl squads will come to Oxford.
Lucky? Sure. But luck won’t define Ole Miss’ season. This year won’t even be defined by whether Ole Miss gets to Atlanta for the first time in program history (there’s a world in which an 11-1 Ole Miss is on the outside looking in depending perhaps on how that Georgia-Texas matchup goes). This year will be defined by whether that selection committee announces Ole Miss as a member of the first 12-team field. Period.
Anything less than that? Disappointing. Anything more than that? That’ll exceed expectations.
That’s the spot that Kiffin put himself in.
The mark of a great coach in this sport is one who not only earns unprecedented preseason hype, but then lives up to it. Say what you want about preseason rankings and the rat poison they create in the internet age. History tells us that adds another layer. Kiffin’s 2012 USC squad was part of a rather dubious stat. That is, since 2005, 18 of the last 19 preseason AP No. 1 teams failed to win a national title.
Ole Miss hasn’t earned the right to be a preseason No. 1 team. Anyone who disagrees with that needs to rewatch that Georgia game last year and at least acknowledge that Ole Miss has to show it bridged that gap on the field, and not just with offseason good vibes or winning on social media.
Whether Kiffin acknowledges it directly or not, the historical context of what he’s embarking on isn’t lost on him.
At SEC Media Days, Kiffin made the rounds for his interaction with Paul Finebaum. Kiffin referenced how Finebaum called for him to be fired at USC and said that he was the Miley Cyrus of college football.
“Really, I don’t know what you’re good at. You predicted Coach Saban was done — that didn’t happen. You basically said Miley Cyrus stinks, and she’s still going.”
– Lane Kiffin with a little ribbing of Paul Finebaum.
(H/T @JustOKsport) pic.twitter.com/2QVF62dUk6
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 18, 2024
Kiffin’s got a certain “how do you like me now” about him entering 2024. The irony is that he seemed to have that back at USC, but it didn’t feel warranted.
What’s undeniable is that Kiffin has earned the right to clap back. He led Ole Miss to its first 10-win regular season ever in 2021, and he one-upped that feat with the program’s first 11-win season in school history in 2023. Year 5 has the makings of another historic season in Oxford.
And if it doesn’t include a momentous Selection Sunday? Get ready.
That Kiffin bashing will be comin’ in like a wrecking ball.
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.
