Coaching rumors hover over Ole Miss-Auburn − but don't ask Lane Kiffin for hot-seat advice
OXFORD − As Ole Miss football prepares to play Auburn, there's going to be plenty of talk about coaching rumors. But when Lane Kiffin is involved in a game, what else is new?
The No. 9 Rebels (6-0, 2-0 SEC) host Auburn (3-3, 1-2) in Oxford on Saturday (11 a.m., ESPN). Kiffin's squad is one of four unbeaten teams remaining in the SEC, riding a new-look team of transfer acquisitions to try to make a second-straight New Year's Six appearance. The Tigers are coming off back-to-back losses versus LSU and Georgia and coach Bryan Harsin is deeply entrenched in a months-long battle against the hot seat with speculation swirling in every direction about his future with the program.
As always seems to be the case, Kiffin's name is one being floated as a potential replacement for Harsin if Auburn makes a move.
Kiffin's reputation makes that inevitable. He left Tennessee after one season in 2009. He's in his third year in Oxford, which is the same length of time he spent at his previous two jobs as an assistant at Alabama and head coach at Florida Atlantic. Just like last year when the Miami, LSU, Florida and Oregon jobs opened, Kiffin is going to continue to be implicated in job openings as long as he's in the business.
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But Kiffin has been on the other side of hot seat rumors, too. His ill-fated tenure at Southern Cal famously ended with him being left on an airport tarmac five games into the 2013 season. So when asked what the keys are to a coach surviving life on the hot seat Monday, Kiffin had a quip at the ready.
"I didn't do very good. I got fired after five games," Kiffin joked. "So I'm probably not the one to ask how to do that. I was 3-2. But I'm probably not the right one to ask that."
The sideshow of Harsin and Kiffin's futures may well overshadow an otherwise important game for the Rebels' present. With a win, the Rebels will improve to 7-0 for just the second time since Lawrence of Arabiaand To Kill a Mockingbird were in theaters — 1962. For a team trying to prove it's capable of playing at a high level for more than a quarter or two at a time, a test against a scuffling Auburn team could go a long way toward proving Ole Miss' contender status.
Ole Miss hasn't beaten Auburn since 2015 and hasn't beaten the Tigers in Oxford since 2012. Last year's loss on The Plains was the reason the Rebels didn't earn a share of the SEC West title. Defeating Auburn is one of the next steps in Ole Miss' growth trajectory as a true contender in the SEC.
As for the Tigers, a loss would be Auburn's eighth in its last nine SEC games. The lone win came in overtime after Missouri missed a 26-yard field goal and fumbled through the back of the end zone to lose the game. That's a tough situation to be in for a program that, before this stretch, hadn't lost even three straight SEC games in a season since 2012.
Auburn is losing more than it's used to. Ole Miss is winning more than it's used to. At the heart of it, that's why Kiffin's name will circulate in the rumor mill and why he's seen as a logical replacement for Harsin should the Tigers move on.
The hypotheticals are tantalizing to argue about, whichever outcome comes to fruition. But as the Tigers and Rebels prepare for their matchup this weekend, the reality is more important: Ole Miss needs to focus on preserving its winning ways and Auburn's players needs to try to avoid the noise surrounding their coach and his future.
Not that Kiffin has much advice on how to do it.
Contact Nick Suss at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on Twitter @nicksuss.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin has no hot-seat advice for embattled Bryan Harsin
