playDavid HaleSep 17, 2026, 07:00 AM ETCloseCollege football reporter.Joined ESPN in 2012.Graduate of the University of Delaware.Multiple AuthorsOpen Extended ReactionsBreakups are hard.There’s no right way to tell someone you’re moving on, to put a hard stop on a thing that, at some point, felt like it had a promising future. Feelings get hurt, tempers flair, no one comes out the other side looking good. As Tom Cruise rightly noted in the cinematic masterpiece “Cocktail,” everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn’t end.And, of course, no one does breakups as badly as Lane Kiffin.Tennessee fans still keep a stash of golf balls and plastic mustard bottles at the ready, just in case there’s a Kiffin sighting within 30 miles of Knoxville.Somewhere, there’s a Kiffin-related support group that meets on an airport tarmac and shares motivational messages on an overhead projector.Now, Ole Miss is the latest to sit alone in a darkened room listening to Journey’s “Faithfully” on repeat, wondering how it all went so wrong.As with all breakups, the losing side goes through the typical stages of grief — anger, denial, bargaining, the Sugar Bowl — before arriving at acceptance. That’s the goal at Ole Miss now, with Pete Golding at the helm and the No. 8 ranking next to its name.
It’s OK. The Rebels have moved on. They’re ready for a bright new future, stronger for the experience.Except for this week.”To get through Week 3, to get that game behind us,” Ole Miss AD Keith Carter said, “the hope is it can put some closure on all that saga, all that drama.”Ah, yes, the drama.Nothing stymies a breakup recovery quite like bumping into your ex at a party, there with a new partner, who’s also probably a doctor or a lawyer or Trey’Dez Green. Then all the emotional maturity developed in the months since the breakup goes out the window, and all that’s left is a game of one-upmanship to prove who’s happier with their new lives.In other words, Saturday’s LSU-Ole Miss showdown in Oxford is going to be saltier than the oysters at Snackbar.This game has been hyped since the moment Kiffin boarded that plane bound for Baton Rouge, and that’s often a recipe for disappointment.
When does a matchup with this much anticipation ever live up to expectations?And yet, when has Kiffin ever done anything less but deliver the goods when there’s an opportunity to steal the show? He’s Maximus at the center of the Coliseum, holding the carcass of Clemson’s football program and shouting, “Are you not entertained?”Ole Miss, too, seems poised for this moment. Trinidad Chambliss led the Rebels past Louisville in the opener, ensuring a top-10 matchup for Kiffin’s return. It is Ole Miss, of course, that was within a breath of the national championship game last season, winning two playoff games without its former coach on the sideline.
And had Kiffin not abandoned ship, had he not toyed with Ole Miss about which assistant coaches could stick around for the postseason, had he not been working the phones to lure a cache of his former players to LSU — perhaps the Rebels would’ve beaten Miami in the Fiesta Bowl, toppled Indiana in the title game, and hoisted the championship trophy at year’s end.Ole Miss will never know the answer to that “what if,” which is why Saturday is about so much more than simply proving the best revenge is living well.Kiffin didn’t just spurn Ole Miss, after all.He had a likely playoff team. He was getting paid. He had a coaching staff that wanted to stick together. He had made Ole Miss into a destination, then stared out across the fence to a greener pasture he found utterly irresistible.A kinder man might have offered the “it’s not you, it’s me” routine.
Kiffin made it clear — it’s you.In LSU, Kiffin saw a fast track to the type of legacy held by only a small few college coaches, including two who had mentored him in Pete Carroll and Nick Saban. Both urged him to take the job.In Ole Miss, Kiffin saw a place that had reached its apex, that was playing with house money, that could never appreciate the more refined air he’d tasted at USC and Alabama.That’s what’s at stake for the Rebels on Saturday. It’s not just about getting a little revenge, though if someone wanted to pull the fire alarm at Kiffin’s hotel at 3 a.m., no one’s going to ask too many questions. No, this is about proving that Kiffin was wrong about Ole Miss, wrong about what college football’s hierarchy in this new era of player movement and revenue sharing is, wrong not about who the Rebels were, but about what they could become.That’s the other thing about breakups.
It can be the start of a long slide into oblivion, or it can be the spark that lights up a far brighter future.Jump to: Top games | Under-the-radar Upset alert | Power rankings Heisman five | Two-minute drillThe rest of this week’s headlinersFlorida State at Alabamaplay2:05As long as Alabama doesn’t beat itself, Week 3 is smooth sailingFlorida State’s trip to Tuscaloosa to take on Alabama feels like just the right time to go ahead and move Mike Novell’s office down to subbasement C and talk to payroll about halting his direct deposits.A year ago, the Seminoles’ stunning upset of Alabama in Week 1 seemed to be Norvell getting the program back on track after a miserable 2024. Instead, it was a blip, and FSU finished 5-7, missing a bowl for the second straight year. (And based on sheer player attendance, most Noles missed the 2023 postseason, too.)Things are bleak in Tallahassee, with the school making the first step toward admitting defeat this week when it fired athletics director Michael Alford. A lack of fundraising for talent acquisition seemed Alford’s primary crime, though that hardly explains the losses to schools such as Memphis and Stanford.Nowhere has the lack of investment proved more dramatic than at QB. Jordan Travis was a star for Florida State, but when it was time to turn the page, the Seminoles whiffed.
A finalist to land Cam Ward in 2024, the future No. 1 draft pick proved too rich for FSU’s blood. He went to Miami, and the Noles went 2-10. A year later, they brought in Thomas Castellanos to run Gus Malzahn’s offense. It didn’t work.
This year, they have Ashton Daniels, another bargain-bin add, and the offense is sputtering.Set aside Travis, and all FSU quarterbacks since Jameis Winston left town after 2014 have combined to complete 58% of their throws, have 154 touchdowns and 104 turnovers, and have accounted for a woeful 45.1 QBR. And the ones who haven’t won consistent starting jobs — Chubba Purdy, Tate Rodemaker, AJ Duffy, Brock Glenn and Luke Kromenhoek — all transferred only to find even worse outcomes. As a group, QBs recruited out of high school by Norvell are a combined 2-23 vs. FBS opponents as starters, 0-15 after leaving FSU.So what’s the best-case scenario for Florida State in Week 3?Another win over Alabama probably isn’t changing any hearts and minds.
Before Week 1’s matchup against SMU, fans were chanting “We want Jimbo,” begging for the return of a coach who betrayed them back in 2017. Seems doubtful Ole Miss fans will ever be chanting for Kiffin — no matter how bad things get in Oxford down the road. But that’s where we are at with Florida State. Anything seems better than the current mess. (Well, maybe not Willie Taggart.
At least Norvell doesn’t have his players wearing turnover backpacks.)Instead, odds are Florida State will lose to Alabama, and then the end seems inevitable. Central Arkansas is next, followed by three straight ranked foes — Virginia, Louisville and Miami.The writing is on the wall, and it reads: “Send help.”Florida at AuburnAlex Golesh and Jon Sumrall have both injected new life into dormant SEC programs, and both are chasing conference win No. 1 here. Florida has scored 117 points in its first two games, just a touchdown shy of what it had mustered over its final six in 2025 and roughly double what Florida fans remember scoring during the entirety of the Will Muschamp era. Auburn’s defe
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