LuciusSulla

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What do we know about Faulkner?

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Like all coaches, Goldings success will largely come down to who he gets as OC and DC. That, and our NIL collective remaining strong.

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Bingo Bango.

And no one is bringing as much heat as Lane Kiffin does, for good or bad. That guy is the personification of a Faustian pact. Ole Miss will have to hustle more to maintain the national profile that's been earned because we don't have Football Kardashian here anymore, but it can be done.

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Where is it posted?

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I dug this up for a Gator board I'm on in trying to explain that there's a lot more to why Ole Miss got better in the last six years than just Kiffin and that Kiffin was a pretty controversial hire here at the time.

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The pertinent quote being:

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You ask me, it depends on which Kiffin he hired. Kiffin has been called a football genius. He also has been called brash, immature and worse. His hiring is a calculated risk. Carter believed he needed to make a big splash with this hire because of an apathetic fan base. He strongly believes that revenue generated by increased ticket sales and athletic donations will more than make up for the millions this coaching change will cost. And he might be right.

But not all Ole Miss people are so enamored with Kiffin’s hiring. Archie Manning, the school’s all-time athletic hero, has been noticeably reticent on the subject. He was not part of this hiring process.

There are others.

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It looks like LK fricked us with Sumrall on the way out the door:

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That was 100% a joke about only getting the job because Kiffin turned it down for what it's worth.

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I’m seeing on On3 that Lane Kiffin offered the players $7 million to come with him today, and LSU sent 3 planes.

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I'm not even sure he can do that. While it may go to court eventually, for now, the revenue sharing changes coming next season along with the introduction of an NIL clearinghouse are going to change the way money is flying around next year a lot. It will probably bring the bagman back as well, but money will work a lot different next year, at least above the table.

Sigh, well - here comes an essay. But I've been stewing on this since watching the game in person Saturday.

It's quite a bit different than what happened at LSU. First, the SoS isn't firing anyone or telling the school what to do. He's expressing a sentiment widely felt around Oxford as well that after the Kiffin PR tour earlier this season, he seems kind of full of shite.

That's a lot different than the governor wading in about someone needing to be looked into and then basically taking over the search, regardless of how he wanted to put it. A LOT different.

Look, I can promise you that I can't stand MS politicians even more than most of you here for obvious reasons, but that guy is also an alumni and responding as one to other alumni. I get why he is frustrated. I am a bit too both ways. I'd love to have this settled since I have an interest in both teams, at least as long as live in Oxford.

I know that face-painter over at Locked On Ole Miss loves making some tortured Batman reference about how Ole Miss is used to living in darkness or whatever (it's cringe as frick), but that's not accurate. People are pretty damn sick of going through this and having to wait until the end of the season for him to make up his mind, which in turn really hurts recruiting and conducting a search at Ole Miss if he leaves.

Do they want him to stay despite it? Absolutely. Would they prefer he make up his damn mind and go if he's going. Big Yeah. I think the perspective is that Freeze, despite his numerous flaws (can't stand him either) proved you can win here, Matt Luke sucked, and then Lane has proven you can consistently win 10+ and get to the playoffs. They're looking at a trend line that goes up with a good coach, and they know the longer Lane vacillates, the better the chance is they settle with what's left and won't have one any more.

Are they wrong to assume that? Maybe; I don't know. I can tell you that they have done much better with NIL, foundations, and revenue sharing than most schools have -including UF- and have a lot more money than people think down here. Does UF overall have more money? Absolutely of course they do, and do to multiple reasons. But Ole Miss isn't broke, has an excellent operation and facilities, and has an administration completely behind having a championship team.

Hence the post he was responding to.

As far UF - I have watched more Ole Miss football in the last decade than probably anyone else on this forum without "rebel" in their handle (ironic because I hated Ole Miss when I was a kid). The flip side of this is that Lane and Sexton are edging the shite out of UF and probably going to milk an enormous paycheck with some eye-watering guarantees because Stricklin needs a win and the fanbase is completely enthralled with Lane Kiffin.

And he may win it all at UF.

Or he may be our Mario Cristobal.

That will keep y'all happy until year three when he keeps seeming to drop a head scratcher or two every year that blows the season. Let me tell you, some of those games Ole Miss has lost over the years did come down to the Joes, but a lot of them also came down to X and Os. Lane does some dumb shite pretty regularly, like that Ahab-like quest for 7 points the first time Ole Miss turned it over on downs on a 4th and Goal at the 1. It wasn't just not taking the easy points, it was shite like going away from Lacy after he got you down the field and, with one of the plays, doing some ridiculous razzle dazzle that failed. That's not completely out of the ordinary for Kiffin.

Kiffin seems to be a name in every college or NFL search that pops up, but the guy is still every bit as reckless as he was when he got blown out by Alabama his first season here. But everyone is so fixated on winning Lane that that the coaching bit seems to just not matter. Now it's more about one fanbase flexing on another.

I suspect we'll hear something before the Egg Bowl this time. I suspect in the next few days, the AD at Ole Miss is going to offer Kiffin as much money as anyone else is and tell him to make up his mind if he wants to coach this team in the playoffs. Stay or go, but choose so Ole Miss can do what it needs to do.

Because - and I actually respect Ole Miss for this - they are tired of essentially simping for someone who gets off on being the center of attention. They think the easiest way to maintain what Lane built is for Lane to continue to manage it, but they have enough self-respect to feel he isn't the only one who can and that they therefore have no say so in any of this. I think they are about of just breathing and letting it happen. And good for them.

Personally, my opinion of Lane has changed a lot the last six weeks. I don't think he's any more of a lock to win it all than some other folks out there, and my god, he fricking loves drama and being the center of attention. Yeah, Spurrier always was too, but Spurrier wasn't doing that for him. He was doing that for his team, to get in the other team's head before the game even started every week. Lane does this shite for Lane.

He'll be the coach at UF or Ole Miss next year I imagine, and I hope he is very successful at whichever it is. But I don't think he's either school's only path to be a regular playoff contender by any stretch. I do think he's a still a petulant little shite in a whole lot of ways, but good on him for learning to keep his dick in his pants at least.

I'll probably park over at the Oxford Intermediate. It used to be free, but I guess they figured out that they were giving the milk away and now charge $40.

It's a mile walk, but the walking path makes it an easy one, plus it's really easy to loop the grove in on it. Another upside is that it's usually easy to get out of after the game, plus, as of last night, you could still reserve spots it seemed. You do a Google form, and they email you back with the Venmo.

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For that money, you can probably get closer, but I hate hunting around off Jackson Ave for parking on game day just to save 1/2 a mile of walking.

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Depending on the graduate degree, he could have been at UF just as long as Ole Miss.

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Yeah, that take was really, really off the mark.

I was at UF longer than at my undergrad institution, which boasted a football program that no one cared about to begin with. Most of my cohort at UF who were into sports to this day are Gator fans first.

Anyone who did a graduate program that started with masters-level work and ended in a PhD might have been at their grad institution for almost twice as long in some cases. Hell, I know some people who took almost twice as long to do a PhD alone even starting with a master's.

I realize that most college grads don't go to grad school and that most folks who go to grad school don't do doctorates, but that's still a helluvalot of people. Either way, if you did even just a master's degree but did so on assistantship, and definitely if you did a PhD on assistantship or fellowship (which is usually the whole PhD cohort at any good program), you were likely WAY more involved with the university, at least at the program level, than you ever were as an undergrad. Even where I did my MA, I knew the faculty much better and had more input into curriculum ideas than I did as a BS student. That often leads to a greater sense of ownership in that institution.

Not to mention I paid to go do my BS. UF paid me to do a PhD. To this day, I give far more money back to UF for having given me such an enormous opportunity. They saw something in me back then that I didn't even see in myself, and it changed my life.

My experience is not unique, which is exactly why such blanket statements are absurd.

There is a lot of hyperbole coming from that side, but Florida is really talented this year, aside from DJ looking more and more like a complete bust.

Even with all of that talent, it's been coached like shite all the way until about four weeks ago. In some ways (not every way), Florida is back at the beginning of the season figuring out what they are now that Napier isn't imposing what the offense has to be.

No sure individual metrics matter all that much to be honest though. Ole Miss is a good TEAM. What has impressed me the most this year is that they have managed to win a couple of different ways, and there are enough pieces there that Chambliss can be mediocre and they can still win.

The defense at UF is legit though. They also aren't going to get spooked if they get down early. The one thing, maybe the only thing, I'll give Napier is that his teams play all four quarters. Usually this is because Napier called such a shitty fourth quarter that teams get back in the game even when Florida is up, but even in the loses, they play to the end.

I think Ole Miss should win the game. I think the Vaught is more of a factor for Ole Miss staying hyped than throwing Florida off, but I imagine it's going to be at full tilt for this game.

However, Florida really does have a lot of talent who probably would have won a lot more games this year with competent coaching. They could definitely be a handful if a team got them on a night where everything finally clicked. They could also have a night where DJ throw five picks again. He's just shite at reading defenses and adjusting (see the fourth down play in the WLOCP last week that cost UF the game). He's a complete liability back there as of now, and I don't think Billy G. would bench him regardless of how bad he looks. Apparently, there is a lot of BS behind the scenes with that whole situation.

Yeah, I just bought tickets myself.

I think I'll be slightly sadder if Ole Miss loses than UF given the stakes, but it's honestly a kinda miserable situation. However, I think the atmosphere is going to be wild, and if Ole Miss wins, it will be watching history. Had to suck up the cognitive dissonance and get tickets for me and the girl.