Well, Lane Kiffin must be blessed with a happy family. He and his wife Layla have reconciled and are now one big family of two daughters and one son. But professionally, times are rough for the Ole Miss HC. Kiffin has already lost his dark horse QB Jaxson Dart to the NFL Draft. However, it’s better not to get carried away by their 2024 season’s feat.

Yes, Kiffin and his boys wrapped up the season with a 10-3 overall record. But looks like they will fail to carry the good juju to the next season as analysts raise a blunt verdict for the Rebels. Already, Kiffin has landed in choppy waters when it came to keeping the talent close to him. Are the analysts on point then?

A tough road ahead for Lane Kiffin 

The 2025 season is yet to raise the curtains. But so what? The discussions have started to heat up about how it’s going to be for the college football programs. At a time when programs like Lincoln Riley’s USC Trojans and Deion Sanders‘ Colorado Buffaloes are believed to step up, here comes the other side of the story. “Which team is the most likely candidate for a serious step back this season in the SEC?” CFB analysts Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman’s discussion on the On3 podcast revolved around this question. Here comes some harsh reality as Wasserman went like, “I’m going with Ole Miss here.” Why though?

Last year was the best roster that Kiffin’s program was blessed with. There has been a lot of brain drain over the last couple of months. Last season when it came to the quarterback position they did have a fair edge. Dual-threat Dart passed for 4,279 yards while adding 500 on the ground for Ole Miss. And what about this time? As Dart left Oxford as the all-time winningest starting quarterback, Kiffin now turns into a new era. Austin Simmons is presumed to be the starter. However, his weighing 215 pounds is on the lighter side. On that note, Staples said, “The quarterback scares me at Bama and Georgia. The quarterback doesn’t scare me at Ole Miss. It’s everybody else they lost.” Meanwhile, Wasserman can already sense some regression.

“What I worry about with Ole Miss is regressing back to two years ago where Lane Kiffin said ‘We just weren’t good enough on the line of scrimmage when we played Georgia.’ And that is you don’t want to go back to that because they fixed those issues last year.” The Rebels fans must remember the score. A 52-17 loss to the Bulldogs. Now how to fix things beforehand? By bolstering the roster. There too Kiffin and Co. is in the backfoot. Wasserman stated, “They just lost a lot of talent and it’s hard to replace that especially if you’re not at a place like Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State – where they have just brought in top-five class after top-five class.” Well, it’s true Coach Kiffin faced a lot of recruiting blows lately.

Lane Kiffin has to rebuild everything from scratch 

At the NFL Combine, footfall from Kiffin’s Ole Miss was huge. The rebels had 11 players from their 2024 roster. Some of them were QB Dart, and WR Tre Harris, among many others. In that way, a flock is flying off to the NFL. Now this is something that was not in Kiffin’s hands. But when it came to locking the gates in the transfer season, Ole Miss failed in that too and ended up losing 18 players. However, they have managed to transfer 24 players, but will that be enough to fill the gaps?

Maybe. Maybe not. Now Kiffin has to start everything afresh. More like a brand-new program. As the HC steps into his sixth season will he be able to turn the hurdles into blessings? Well, going by Kiffin’s experience, he has mastered the transfer portal. The spring practice did give some hope to the HC seeing a new starter at quarterback, a mostly new wide receiver room, and a world of new faces on defense.

In no way Lane Kiffin is pushing the pressure factor under the carpet. Instead, he gladly acknowledges it. “It was good to be out there and good to get some work in. We have a lot of challenges ahead of us and a lot of new starters at different places. We’re continuing to evolve a roster with free agency coming up… It’s a work in progress.” His first challenge will be creating a culture with so many new faces in the hood. Can the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year and legend Monte Kiffin’s son prove he’s up to the task?