There’s been a lot going on around Lane Kiffin. See, Ole Miss hasn’t had the best end this season. Kiffin ended up with 9 wins under his belt, and the playoff shot was stolen away when the Gators somehow managed to win 24-17. This was a tough game to watch. The Rebels were all over the place, and Jaxson Dart was taking shots in the dark. It’s kind of wild when you compare this game to the game against Georgia. It just does not look like the same team. Lane Kiffin and Co. managed to hold back an elite offense to just 10 points. It was one of the best comeback stories in college football. That blowout loss to the Dawgs in 2023 was repaid with a blowout win against them.

Regardless, it is time Kiffin starts focusing on the Gator Bowl, cause while he couldn’t crack a playoff seat, the least he can do before his QB1 leaves for the NFL is get a Bowl win. Right? But here is the catch. Dart leaving for the NFL has opened up talks about who is going to be Kiffin’s next QB1. Adding confusion to this mess is the fact that last day, for some wild reason, in a now-deleted tweet, Kiffin decided to share an ESPN update on Duke QB Maalik Murphy hitting the transfer portal. Is this Kiffin’s next target? Yeah, not exactly. “We had Lane Kiffin tweeting today and I think people might have taken this the wrong way….. People who maybe haven’t checked the bowl matchups yet, that were assuming this is Lane trying to recruit Maalik Murphy,” Andy Staples pointed out.

Yeah, that is the real scene. This is not Kiffin trying to grab Maalik Murphy as his QB1. This was just a snub that the team they are playing against during the Gator Bowl will be losing one of their most impactful players. Let’s get one thing clear. We all know who Kiffin will have as his next QB1.

First, remember that backup QB Walker Howard is hitting the transfer portal, so he is out of the talk. It is Austin Simmons who will be taking up the charge. When the Rebels were fighting off the Dawgs, Dart was called off because of an injury in the first drive of the game, so Simmons was put in, and boom!—led Ole Miss to a touchdown.

That single drive pretty much solidified the fact that Simmons was next for the role. “Anybody who saw Austin Simmons take over for Jaxson Dart for that one drive… You’re pretty confident that’s QB1 for Ole Miss next year,” Staples added. But then again, all of these hinges on the fact that Kiffin sticks with Ole Miss for next year. Yeah, see, after this disappointing year, Kiffin has been a bit cryptic about his future with the Rebels.

Is Lane Kiffin calling it quits?

Not too long ago, Kiffin shared a very interesting story on his Instagram. “Wasted 4 years of my life doing this. It was exhausting,” he pointed out. Now the post he had shared has a quote on it: ‘Stop looking for happiness in the same place you lost it.’ Take a wild guess where Kiffin has coached for the last 4 years. Yeah, Ole Miss.

With how the year ended and his entire rant about the playoff bracket being unfair, we won’t be surprised if Kiffin decides to ditch everything and leave for the NFL. And this won’t even be a bad thing. The fact that he has NFL experience (coaching the Raiders back in 2007 and 2008) means that he has the connection to call it quits and join a roster in the league.

But then again, it could all be a big theory. With how Kiffin and Dart had extensively hit the transfer portal to change the team’s offense and defense, it doesn’t feel like the HC will call it quits so soon. Regardless of what happens, we cannot wait to see how the Rebels do in the Gator Bowl.