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The college football coaching carousel is spinning quicker as the month of October comes to a close. There are currently seven power conference openings around the nation including LSU, Florida, Penn State, Arkansas, UCLA, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State and Stanford. Florida State and Auburn are also jobs that could be open before the season ends.
One of the biggest head names in the coaching carousel this season is none Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin. Although Kiffin is expected to stay put at Oxford, where he's been since 2020, there remains a possibility he goes elsewhere.
Here's a a look at the potential best fits for Kiffin as the rumors of him leaving start to heat up.
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1. Florida
There might not be a more perfect coaching candidate for Florida than Kiffin. The Gatos have had a revolving door of coaches since Urban Meyer left in 2011, including Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain, Dan Mullen and Billy Napier. Florida has a rich history, but the program didn't start winning consistently until Steve Spurrier came along in the 1990s.
Kiffin has some connections to the Spurrier. He wears a visor on the sidelines because of the former coach, and grew up a Florida fan, watching Gators' style of play and offense under Spurrier. Kiffin also appears to emulate Spurrier, with his off-field personality, one-liners and constant teasing of opposing head coaches and players.
Kiffin's ex-wife Layla, who lives in Oxford helping to raise their two children, is the daughter of John Reaves. Reaves played football for the Gators in the late 1960s and early 70s and also coached as an assistant for Spurrier in the early 1990s.
Despite winning two national titles in 1996 and 2008, Florida has played in just three SEC title games since 2009, losing all three in 2015, 2016 and 2020. The fanbase is hungry to get a proven winner as head coach, and Florida has drastically improved its facility and NIL resources in recent years.
Kiffin checks all of the boxes that the last few head coaching hires have missed in Gainesville. Even before he became a head coach, he developed a strong reputation as an offensive play-caller early in his career. He's responsible for helping Nick Saban revolutionize his offense from a ground-and-pound system to an up-tempo, pass-heavier scheme.
He's an excellent recruiter, not to mention his self-proclaimed title as the "Transfer Portal King." The biggest box that Kiffin checks is that he is a proven winner at a power-conference school. He led Ole Miss from the bottom of the SEC to three double-digit win seasons in 2021, 2023 and 2024. He's gone 51-19 in Oxford, and is already the school's third-winningest head coach over just six seasons.
Like some other openings, Florida is currently without a university president. But the Gators appear to be the most natural fit for Kiffin at the moment.
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2. LSU
LSU's coaching job just opened last Sunday. Unlike at Florida, LSU has much bigger expectations for its head coach, and there's an urgency to win right away.
Although Brian Kelly finished with a 34-14 record, including two 10-win seasons in 2022 and 2023, it wasn't good enough. Especially considering the fact that Kelly was the first LSU head coach in three hires to not win both an SEC and national title in his first four years. All three of Kelly's predecessors in Nick Saban, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron all accomplished that feat.
Kiffin has yet to reach an SEC title game with Ole Miss -- which has never been done in school history -- but the Rebels are in the mix for a trip to Atlanta this season. Given the rich resources that LSU has with NIL and recruiting -- not to mention being in a recruiting hotbed like Louisiana -- Kiffin would theoretically have no problems taking LSU back to an SEC and national title within that time frame.
Ole Miss has committed vast financial resources to Kiffin's program, and he's been able to recruit quite well. But LSU's recruiting classes finished well ahead of Ole Miss' classes from 2022-25, usually in the Top-10 nationally.
Another interesting factor at LSU -- the state of the university. Louisiana govenor Jeff Landry made headlines on Wednesday stating that then-LSU athletic director Scott Woodward, who hired Kelly and Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M, would not picking LSU's next head coach. Then on Thursday night, Woodward announced that he and the school would part ways. Given that LSU is currently without a school president, Landry has taken a more public-facing role in the coach search. But he contends he will not be the one selecting LSU's next head coach.
While Kiffin obviously knows LSU's reputation as a strong SEC contender, he may see LSU as a less-stable destination given the recent developments.
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3. Remain at Ole Miss
All signs, for now, are pointing towards this being a likely outcome for Kiffin. Appearing this week on the "Pat McAfee Show," Kiffin said that with his coaching career, he's never once made a decision based off money, despite his agent Jimmy Sexton disagreeing.
In Kiffin's recent E:60 documentary "The Many Lives of Lane Kiffin," Kiffin said that when he arrived at Ole Miss, he noticed the slower change of pace. But he admitted that "maybe there's a reason for that." The documentary also details how Kiffin found sobriety while living in Oxford.
The majority of Kiffin's family is in Oxford, including his son Knox who plays quarterback at the local high school.
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4. Penn State
There's no question that Penn State would be an attractive option for Kiffin. The argument can be made that it could be a bit easier for Kiffin to win in the Big Ten, after five successful seasons coaching in the SEC.
However, Kiffin has never coached in the northeast and in terms of resources and location and with NIL resources, both LSU and Florida are considered better options than Penn State.
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5. Other potential openings: Auburn, Florida State, NFL
Although these jobs aren't available just yet, it's important to point out that these could come open in the future. Auburn is struggling under head coach Hugh Freeze, who is 15-18 over three seasons with the Tigers. Kiffin reportedly was close to taking the Auburn job in 2022, but remained at Ole Miss and was awarded a new contract.
The Florida State job could also be open in the coming weeks, despite Mike Norvell's hefty $54 million buyout.
And we can't forget about the NFL. Obviously Kiffin's stint with the Oakland Raiders was disastrous, and he seems to enjoy coaching at the college level quite a bit. But given the lighter schedule and lack of constantly recruiting in the NFL, a head coaching or coordinator job could be an attractive change of pace for Kiffin, who is 50 years old.
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