Kiffin poised to make a run at Vaught-era greatness at Ole Miss

• Returning to the glory days requires something Ole Miss has lacked in the post-Vaught Era – stability. No one has come closer to bringing the Rebels back around than Kiffin.

August is just a long hot month.

For most people, vacations are complete. Schools are back in session. The electric bills keep coming.

And though the press conference clips you see online are a big tease, there’s still no college football on Saturdays.

Program Building in Focus

There was an interesting question at Lane Kiffin’s season-opening presser last week.

Kiffin was asked if he thought his offensive line transfers – there are four, led by Washington interior lineman Nate Kalepo – could match the production expected from his much-hyped defensive line transfers in Walter Nolen and Princely Umanmielen.

In the time-honored tradition of college football coaches, Kiffin barely answered the question. He offered little in the way of specifics about his offensive line transfers. Instead, he took the topic a different direction, and his response was more useful than a hot take on his OL.

“It doesn’t mean we’re going to be any good, but we do for the first time since I’ve been here, look like a real team. Even in walk-through. Again, that doesn’t mean we’re going to be any good, but we actually have length and size like really good teams do,” Kiffin said.

Is there contentment in the response? Maybe more than in years past. Not contentment with the ability of players but contentment, perhaps, in program building.

There is an older generation of Ole Miss fans, becoming fewer, that were eyewitnesses to the glory days of Coach John Vaught and crave a return to that level of prominence for Ole Miss football.

The college football landscape is different than it was then. It’s more competitive and has more legitimate contenders.

That type of success is an admirable goal, but it requires something Ole Miss has lacked in the post-Vaught Era – stability.

There have been flashes of it, but big seasons here and there have been interspersed with NCAA troubles and the resulting aftermath.

Having had that sustained success under Vaught has kept subsequent Ole Miss leaders searching feverishly to find it again. That’s led to an incredible run of coaching turnover.

Stability at Ole Miss Football?

Kiffin, a career wanderer often by his own account sometimes not, is beginning his fifth season. He’s been here longer than many people would have thought, no doubt himself included.

His brief tenure has been dotted with his name constantly mentioned with other jobs. None came closer to luring him away than his bizarre in-season flirtation with Auburn in 2021.

Now he seems to have moved on from that, and his response to the OL question was interesting. It’s almost as if Kiffin has settled in and given himself to the idea that he can build something special at Ole Miss. Some in the college football guessing business believe that’s this season. Others see the After Vaught Effects and are reluctant to get on board.

His response would have given more credence to the idea of settling in if it had been part of his opening remarks. It wasn’t, but he also didn’t have to pull it from the recesses of his mind. It took only a simple prompt, almost like an, “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this.”

Amid all that coaching turnover since Vaught, the father of Ole Miss football stability, no one has come closer to bringing the Rebels back around than Kiffin.

He’s delivered a 10-win season, an 11-win season and two access bowls. He had big wins and got the Rebels to a New Year’s Day bowl in his first season.

There’s always been a mysterious aura around Kiffin as a coach. Now preseason rankings and chatter will tell you 2024 – which unveils an expanded 12-team college football playoff field – will be his best season yet.

Challenges remain for sustained success.

Results Rivaling Elite Teams

Research at NIL-NCAA.com shows 11 of the 16 SEC teams have NIL collectives that have generated at least $10 million.

Texas and LSU have surpassed $20 million.

South Carolina leads the other five with more than $9 million.

Ole Miss is next with just less than $9 million.

There are legal T’s to be crossed, I’s to be dotted, but it’s possible schools could begin paying all players aside from NIL as soon as next fall.

Keeping up with the elite in college football has always required Ole Miss to punch above its weight, and that won’t change.

Kiffin’s gotten more done at Ole Miss than at any other point in his career. The administration has given him what he needs. His flashy offense and double-digit wins have helped him get players and build to the point that he thinks the Rebels look like a team that could contend for a championship.

Are we watching Ole Miss football stability come together with a college football wanderer who may be settling down?

Perhaps. It will be fun finding out.