After last year’s home loss to Kentucky, which represented the Wildcats' lone win in SEC play and kept the Rebels out of the College Football Playoff, you’d think Lane Kiffin’s lone focus was winning the game on his Week 2 trip to Lexington. However, he managed to keep the points spread in the back of his head, and as always, Kiffin is ready to troll.
The line closed at Ole Miss -7.5 against Kentucky, which looked like a winner when Kiffin sent Lucas Carneiro out to ice the game with a 36-yard field goal to go up 30-20 with just 1:10 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Then, Kentucky and backup freshman quarterback Cutter Boley marched the Wildcats down the field for a field goal with 13 seconds left. The Wildcats failed to recover the ensuing onside kick attempt, Ole Miss won 30-23, Kentucky covered the 7.5 (and the bad 8.5 line I had in my best bets this week), and the game went over the 51.5-point total it closed at.
ESPN play-by-play announcer Sean McDonough made a not-so-subtle reference to the gambling implications, but Kiffin addressed them directly in his postgame interview with Molly McGrath.
“That’s a really hard team that plays really close games,” Kiffin said in reference to his familiar foe. “So, proud of our guys, sorry to all the gamblers there at the end,” Kiffin concluded, tongue certainly planted firmly in his cheek.
There has always been a faux pas around gambling talk, especially on game broadcasts, but now that ESPN licenses its own sportsbook, it’s not like they can have anything to say to Kiffin.
Lane Kiffin says the quiet part out loud about NIL and revenue-sharing payments
That’s not all Kiffin had to say to McGrath on the field in Lexington on Saturday. He continues to be one of the few head coaches in the country comfortable speaking bluntly about the realities of college football in the NIL era.
Kiffin is one of the most Transfer Portal-heavy roster builders in the country, and adding proven veterans, which he had to do this offseason with just four returning starters from last season’s team, isn’t cheap.
“This was a game a year ago where we didn’t finish it on offense, and then we didn’t finish it on defense, so to do that on defense, that’s why those guys up front get paid a lot of money to end the game.”
Like him or hate him, Kiffin’s never afraid to speak his mind, and with old-school coaches like Mike Gundy still resisting the payment of players and crying poor on a weekly basis, Kiffin’s honesty is refreshing.