Everyone affiliated with the Ole Miss football program from the university president to the players is wanting the media, fans and everyone else to focus on the Battle for the Golden Egg.
But getting the spotlight off of coach Lane Kiffin’s future is about as easy as driving by a car crash and not looking at it.
That’s not stopping Ole Miss from trying.
Breakout quarterback Trinidad Chambliss made a social media post with the message him and his teammates are focused on the Egg Bowl.
To our fans, this team is completely locked in, living in the moment, and staying true to our 1-0 mindset for the Egg Bowl and future games. We are unbothered by anything about next year and fully trusting Coach Kiffin’s leadership to keep us moving toward our goals! pic.twitter.com/AAgraNb63P
— Trinidad Chambliss (@TrinidadChambl1) November 24, 2025
Star running back had a similar sentiment in a social media post of his own.
Ole Miss athletic director had a similar message in his statement Friday.
“Despite the outside noise, Coach Kiffin is focused on preparing our team for the Egg Bowl, and together, we want to ensure that our players and coaches can concentrate fully on next Friday’s game.”
Let’s lock in and focus on keeping the Golden Egg! pic.twitter.com/5xPfDozhl2
— Keith Carter (@KeithCarterOM) November 21, 2025
Ole Miss Chancellor Glenn Boyce made an appearance on a Monday morning radio show and was asked about rumors around Kiffin.
“We put the statement out and the statement pretty much speaks for itself,” Boyce said. “Talks will continue. They will continue through the week between coach Kiffin and Keith. But our focus and our emphasis right now, and we’re determined to be focused on this, is winning this last football game. Being an 11-1 team and being the first team in history of the University of Mississippi to make the College Football Playoffs and if we’re not seeded higher than we currently are then to have one of the greatest sporting events to ever come to Mississippi and that would be a home playoff game.”
And then there’s Kiffin himself who said at his Monday press conference he wouldn’t answer questions about his coaching future. He was still asked three different times about the situation with him, LSU and Florida, but his answers were mostly the same.
“Very fair question but we’re not answering anything that doesn’t have to do with the game and the team and the season, but fair question,” Kiffin said.
It’s a concerted effort to quiet the “outside noise” in the lead up to Friday’s Egg Bowl against Mississippi State. Spoiler alert: It won’t work.
Where did it all go wrong?
The outside noise has been like a weeks-long heavy metal concert in terms of how loud it’s been. But it wasn’t always like that.
Florida fired Billy Napier more than a month ago and it’s been almost a month since LSU fired Brian Kelly. So why is it so loud now?
Sure, there was a lot of noise when Napier was fired and it grew a little bit when Kelly was fired (or whatever sematic word LSU wants to use since its formally fired Kelly late last week), but it increased exponentially after Ole Miss beat Florida.
And there are three reasons why.
1. Playoff spot became a near-lock
Napier was officially fired on October 19, which is the starting point for Kiffin’s coaching future saga.
Six days later, the Rebels beat Oklahoma on the road and put themselves in a position that if they win their final four games, they’re in the College Football Playoff.
Ole Miss has won three of those games and now faces a Mississippi State team that’s not as good as its 4-0 start to the season would indicate.
The Rebels’ making the playoffs is a very real possibility (in what many thought would be a “rebuilding” year) and fans have to deal with LSU and Florida trying to pry Kiffin away from Oxford while that happens.
It’s turned the Ole Miss fanbase’s anger up to a boiling point and they’re not being quiet about it either.
2. It was a bye week
Mike Florio, founder of ProFootballTalk, often will refer to NFL games as shiny objects to distract fans’ attention away from a scandal. The same is true for college football.
There was no shiny object for Ole Miss last week, meaning those of us who make a living writing about the football team had to write about something other than previews about a game.
Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for Kiffin and Ole Miss, the third reason gave us plenty to write about.
3. Kiffin family visits Gainesville, Baton Rouge
This is the proverbial, nail-in-the-coffin or straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back moment. Until this point, nothing was certain. It was rumors, theories, anonymous sources and pure speculation.
But then Kiffin’s family visited both Gainesville, Fla. and Baton Rouge, La. doing the types of things you do when considering a move (looking at houses, schools, etc.). There’s also the fact an LSU private plane openly landed at an Oxford airport.
That confirmed at least some rumors to be true: that Florida and LSU were very interested in Kiffin and Kiffin was seriously considering them.
A lot of fans took the blatant flaunting of an LSU plane in Oxford as a slap in the face. And Kiffin considering leaving Ole Miss on the cusp of its best season ever, a knife in their backs.
It was fun watching the social media posts about flight trackers following private planes leaving Oxford, Gainesville and Baton Rouge last week, but that’s where somebody messed up.
Keep those visits more of a secret and the noise doesn’t hit the levels it did. Now, there’s no going back.
No matter how many players make social media posts.
