Lane Kiffin doesn't care about money, says coaching rumors no 'big deal' to players

With a few big-time openings in college football, this offseason is setting up to be wild.

After LSU fired Brian Kelly on Sunday, one of the top jobs is now available. Not to discredit Florida or Penn State, but anyone stepping into the role at Death Valley knows how important winning is to the culture. One name at the top of many lists is Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin.

While he made it clear his future ambitions are focused on being in Oxford, Kiffin can't ignore the hype happening around him. This prompted an appearance on Monday's episode of ESPN's Pat McAfee Show to clear the air.    

"I usually don't talk about it with the team," Kiffin said. "Because we've dealt with this for a number of years because our players have performed well and won a lot of games here. And so, this attention has come with that. I just thought last week was important late in the week to address it on Friday, and just because we have so many new players. So they hadn't been here a year or the year before that when these job rumors would come up. I just told them, 'Hey this is a product of how you guys play'. They see how you play and fans are like 'We want that system'." 

Kiffin has been instrumental in Ole Miss' success with the Rebels sitting in prime position to make a run in the College Football Playoff. Despite being one of the main storyline this season, the longtime coach put the spotlight on those grunt workers around him.  

"It's the system of the players and the assistant coaches and what a good job they do," Kiffin said. "I just want to complement them." 

For all the side chatter, Kiffin has a realistic perspective to the rumors of him moving on to his possible next stop. Some may criticize him for viewing this as a sign of the time, but it reflects the current state of college football.    

"I think it's easier for them nowadays. Because remember, basically the same thing happens to them," Kiffin said about his players dealing with the coaching rumors. "They have a good game, what happens? You know, our freshman receiver has a good game Saturday night, he's gotten three calls from places saying 'Hey, come here and we'll give you more money' in pre-portalling. You know, before the portal opens... that's what happens. So, they deal with this all the time... I don't think it's that big of a deal to them." 

Lane Kiffin says on the @PatMcAfeeShow he won’t make his life decisions based off of money pic.twitter.com/qUc8N7B9p5

Kiffin went on to point out this was never something the players had to deal with before. It's one of the conditions of the new era in college football. It's the world we live in now.  

“I have never made a decision based off money, nor will I", Kiffin added. "I’ve seen too many examples in life where money does not buy happiness. So I’m never going to make a decision off of money, nor do I care about it. Jimmy Sexton (his agent) gets really mad when I say that.”

No. 7 Ole Miss prepares to host South Carolina on Saturday night (7 p.m. ET, ESPN). 

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• Paul Finebaum remains sold on one name for Florida opening
• UNC fans think Bill Belichick resigned to join Duke's coaching staff because of a satirical story