How Lane Kiffin’s Exit Changed Ole Miss’ College Football Playoff Outlook

The expansion of the College Football Playoff has been a net positive for the sport.

It has opened doors for Group of Five schools to legitimately have a chance to play for a national title and created a new college football reality where one or two losses in a 12-game regular season don’t totally tank your title hopes.

However, when paired with the uneasy state of the college football recruiting calendar, the bigger bracket has also created a situation that feels surreal.

This week, Ole Miss, which won a program record 11 regular-season games, will host its first-ever College Football Playoff game without the head coach who got the team there.

After an extended, quite public courtship, Lane Kiffin left the Rebels after six seasons to become the next head coach at LSU Nov. 30.

Despite him begging to do so, Ole Miss rightfully refused to allow Kiffin to coach Ole Miss through its CFP run, which begins Saturday when the sixth-seeded Rebels face No. 11 seed Tulane in Oxford, Miss.

Whatever you think of Kiffin’s decision -- I, for one, don’t think the ceiling is that much higher to warrant becoming a villain to so many -- it creates what has to be a first in major sports.

A coach left his team despite being just four wins away from a championship.

Imagine a major league manager stepping down for another job just as the World Series is set to begin. Or an NFL head coach leaving just as his team’s playoff run was on the horizon?

You can’t. Because it shouldn’t be a thing.

In theory, I understand Kiffin’s reasoning. If he was planning to leave, he had to when he did in order to shore up his first LSU high-school signing class. That paid off with multiple five-star defensive linemen who were committed to LSU signing to play for Kiffin the first week of December.

But it comes at a big cost to Ole Miss on multiple fronts.

After Kiffin’s departure, Ole Miss promoted defensive coordinator Pete Golding to permanent head coach. For the playoff, this makes sense. The Rebels’ only chance at making a run would be from the stability that a sitting coach on the staff could provide.

But what are the long-term implications of this? In 2026, Golding will be a first-time head coach. He’s coordinated some great defenses, first at Alabama under Nick Saban (2018-22) and then under Kiffin in Oxford (2023-25). But plenty of coordinators who struggled to make that leap to head coach will tell you it’s a slightly different skill-set.

Could Ole Miss, which had its best run of extended success in modern history under Kiffin, have made a hire with a better chance of success if it wasn’t having to consider galvanizing the team for this CFP run?

Ole Miss did allow former offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. and four other assistant coaches who followed Kiffin to LSU to return to coach the Rebels during the CFP.

But it’s fair to ask if Ole Miss will get their full attention or if it could be divided between the Rebels’ preparation and getting ready for the transfer portal opening early next month at their new school.

The betting markets seem to have some minor concerns about this Ole Miss team without its head coach. We saw the Rebels host Tulane back in September of this year, coming away with a resounding 45-10 victory.

The odds for the rematch don’t reflect that margin, with Ole Miss favored by 17.5 points.

It feels like there’s some Kiffin absence baked into that, which is totally understandable given how involved he was in the offense.

It's also sad as it shows how directly Kiffin's departure tanked the most promising season in program history.