It's good to be Lane Kiffin. It's also not without its stress.
Especially when you hold the fates of three major, Southeastern Conference football programs -- and general moods of those institutions and their fan bases, as well as the potential to ink a contract with any of Florida, LSU or re-upping with Ole Miss for terms crowding $100 million.
Team Kiffin emissaries have been in the Gainesville, Florida, area on Sunday, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Monday.
It was a scheduled off day for Kiffin's one-loss Ole Miss team, which should climb to at least No. 6 in tonight's College Football Playoff rankings and continued to be poised to host an CFP First Round game if not play for the SEC Championship with an opportunity to win and earn a first-round bye.
Florida made its initial run at Kiffin a couple of weeks ago, sources told FootballScoop, and then circled back around after speaking with other candidates to include Florida officials doing their due diligence on Louisville's Brian Brohm and Florida's Eli Drinkwitz.
Kiffin, remember, also was among the youngest head coaches ever in the NFL when he served atop the Raiders franchise. Could the potential opening at the Miami Dolphins entice Kiffin out of the college game?
He's certainly lamented the fact that college football has no guardrails and programs aren't competing on equal ground with such nebulous rules for Name, Image and Likeness compensation as well as discretionary approaches to the revenue-sharing ushered in via the House Settlement.
Now, if Kiffin bolted for LSU he would unquestionably become a forever-nemesis of the Ole Miss faithful who have thus far adored their personable, lightning-rod head coach. Remember, LSU and Ole Miss were deemed permanent rivals by the SEC office and are guaranteed to continue facing each other an annual basis, even as the SEC expands to a nine-game conference slate in 2026 and eliminates some traditional annual opponents.
That's not the case at Florida, which faces Georgia, Kentucky and South Carolina annually.
Elsewhere, Virginia Tech became the first Power Conference job to be filled with the school's announcement Monday that it had reached terms with fired Penn State coach James Franklin.
FootballScoop discusses the Franklin hire -- it sets an early bar for others in the marketplace this cycle, especially in an ACC that's massively competitive but hardly elite.
All this and more in the latest FootballScoop Podcast.
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