Lane Kiffin's likely playoff run poses the biggest question of the coaching carousel: How long would you wait?

LSU potentially entered the Lane Kiffin sweepstakes on Sunday night when it fired coach Brian Kelly.

Kelly is owed nearly $54 million, the second-largest buyout in college football history, though LSU and Kelly's representatives are still negotiating a possible reduced sum. 

Whatever that final number ends up being it'll be a handsome sum to enter the most competitive coaching market of our lifetimes, with jobs like Florida and Penn State already open and others like Florida State and Auburn waiting in the wings (if they don't decide to wait until next cycle because of all the open jobs already). There are other Power Four programs like Arkansas, Oklahoma State and Virginia Tech, too, that would like to be aggressive in getting a top candidate.

The belle of the ball this cycle is Ole Miss' Kiffin, who could find himself caught in a love triangle of his current school fighting to keep him as blue-blood SEC schools to the east and west try to woo him away. But here's why Ole Miss' win Saturday over Oklahoma, 34-26 in Norman, could go down as the biggest in school history. 

If Ole Miss now makes the CFP, as it should, those first-round games begin Dec. 19. Critically, that's two weeks after the early signing period of Dec. 4-6. If Ole Miss were to win that first playoff game that could be played in Oxford, it would then have a quarterfinal game either Dec. 31 or Jan. 1. Why is that important? There's now only one transfer portal window this cycle, and it runs from Jan. 2-16. 

If you had to wait until Jan 1 or later to make a hire, it could put you way behind the 8-ball on putting together not only a high school recruiting class but a transfer group. For Lane, who has been dubbed the "Portal King," that would be especially challenging. With the way fan patience is now, especially in the SEC, you can't just waive away a first recruiting class either the way you might have been able to in the past. Indiana's Curt Cignetti has shown what can be done in Year 1, and every program is chasing it now. 

Would a program like Florida or LSU be willing to wait until after a coach is done in the CFP? 

No school was willing to do it a year ago, and there is considerable skepticism from industry sources CBS Sports has talked to that any school would want to unless it's entirely unavoidable. High-profile coaching hires are already stressful affairs with a lot of proverbial cooks trying to get into the kitchen to sway a decision. Now imagine the pressure an athletic director would be under trying to manage boosters, university decision-makers and reporters for more than a month after the regular season ended. And unless you are absolutely confident that your target is coming no matter what, you'd risk missing out on other top candidates in what is going to be a feeding frenzy for a candidate pool that doesn't seem capable of supporting all the jobs that will come open.

It's what could make this coaching carousel particularly crazy because that doesn't apply to just Kiffin. Many of the other hot coaching candidates this cycle, guys like Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman, Vanderbilt's Clark Lea, Georgia Tech's Brent Key, Texas A&M's Mike Elko and Tulane's Jon Sumrall could all make the playoffs. 

Ole Miss' remaining schedule (Win % via ESPN FPI)

It'd be awfully risky to wait as no coach is going to want to commit to a new school while he's still competing for a national championship. The 50-year-old Kiffin desperately wants to win a national championship one day -- it will drive any decision he makes -- and has learned from past mistakes to give the Rebels the best chance to do so this season.

Consider how Kiffin handled Auburn's interest back in 2022. Auburn fired Bryan Harsin on Halloween -- timing similar to Billy Napier and Kelly's firings -- and didn't hide its interest in the Ole Miss coach. It hung over everything Lane and Ole Miss seemed to do as he seriously considered making the switch to another SEC school. And as the now-famous story goes, had his daughter Landry not convinced him otherwise, Kiffin likely would have become Auburn's coach.

Whether it was his fault or not, Auburn's interest in Kiffin cast a pall over Ole Miss. What started as a 7-0 season finished with a whimper when the Rebels lost their last four games of the season and ended 8-5. The whole situation frustrated Ole Miss administrators and boosters that he wouldn't tamp down the speculation and a dream season went up in smoke.

This time around, Kiffin decided he needed to break from his usual strategy and address the coaching rumors with his team. As he explained on SEC Network Saturday morning, he told his team the interest in him was a result of the team's success.

"That's a product of having a program with a lot of players and coaches doing a really good job," Kiffin said he told his players. "I wouldn't even mention it because they've been through it every year for probably four years in a row, but we have so many players, I just told them, 'hey, guys, this is what happens around here because we win games and people like the style that we play in.'"

LSU coaching search odds: Lane Kiffin, Jimbo Fisher among 10 candidates to replace Brian Kelly

Brad Crawford

Kiffin is never going to make a "I'll never leave here" proclamation during the season the way Ole Miss fans would love to hear. He's said publicly he doesn't want to get involved in contract negotiations during the season despite Ole Miss AD Keith Carter expressing interest in getting something done before things got crazy with the coaching carousel. While it'd make everyone sleep easier at night if Kiffin agreed to a massive new deal the way Cignetti and Indiana just did, it's likely not coming during the season.

But the best thing Lane can do for himself personally and for Ole Miss is just keep winning. It'll make LSU and Florida boosters want him even more, but it helps the home team's cause. 

The more Kiffin feels like he can legitimately win a national championship in Oxford, the more likely he is to say no to every option that comes his way. And if Kiffin sits out the 2025 coaching carousel, then the odds significantly increase that one of the "big three" openings ends in a wild card hire.