Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin responds to Florida football coach

OXFORD, Miss — Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin is not tipping his hand when it comes to speculation that he will take over as coach of the moribund Florida football program next season.

Following No. 7 Ole Miss's 34-24 win over the Florida Gators, the 50-year-old Kiffin was asked how he's handled rumors that he will become UF's next coach.

"I don't think we were distracted today, 538 yards of offense seems pretty focused," Kiffin said. "But we've been dealing with what people would say were distractions for weeks now, we beat Oklahoma, which is a pretty good team.

"I think things are different now. I think kids think differently. They are getting pre-portaled every Saturday night they play well by people. If you guys play really well, good things happen and things get talked about, this is the first time things happen around here. So, I don't think it's a problem."

Kiffin left the field at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium to chants from the student section of "We want Lane" as Ole Miss (10-1, 6-1 SEC) clinched its third straight 10-win season under his guidance. But Kiffin still didn't commit to staying at Ole Miss beyond this season during his postgame press conference. The Rebels have a bye before finishing their season at rival Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl on Nov. 28.

"To even talk about it right now would be so disrespectful to our players and how well they played together," Kiffin said. "We have a lot of things going here, doing really well and I love it here."

Ole Miss avenged a 24-17 upset loss to UF last season and snapped a three-game losing streak to UF overall, posting its first win over UF since 2008. Following the game, Ole Miss played Tom Petty's "I won't back down" to celebrate, taking liberties from UF's iconic end of third quarter song at The Swamp.

"That's why we played their song because we finally beat them," Kiffin said. "Yeah I haven't really thought about it. I have because of how far our program has come."

Kiffin then recalled that his first game coaching at Ole Miss was against UF, a game the Rebels lost 51-35 on Sept. 26, 2020."We were a long way aways on the field from them," Kiffin said. "I know we scored late so it looked like we scored a lot but that day the programs were a long ways apart. So it's been five-and-a-half years later almost it's really cool to see where our program is not just matching up with them but in the SEC."