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Lane Kiffin will address his players about the rumors surrounding his future at Ole Miss. Last week, the Florida Gators fired Billy Napier and are set to pay him $21 million to go away.
The Gators will have a ton of money to spend and are looking for a high-profile coach to take over the reins.
According to CBS Sports’ John Talty, the Gators have contacted people close to Kiffin to gauge his interest in the job.
“Florida AD [Scott Stricklin] had been doing his due diligence on the Ole Miss coach this season and made calls to those around Kiffin.”
When asked about the rumors, Kiffin, who is currently negotiating a contract extension with Ole Miss, refused to discuss his future.
“We don’t really talk about it,” Kiffin said. “I know that’s your guys’ job to bring up and all that. We don’t really talk about it. Like, if we’re around there you wouldn’t know any different of anything. We just stay in the work, stay in the moment, stay in the day. And really, that stuff has nothing to do with what we’re doing. … I think it’s a compliment to the amount of games we’ve been able to win here.”
On Friday, ESPN’s Molly McGrath reported that Kiffin plans to address the rumors with his players.
Via ON3 Sports
“Lane Kiffin told me he usually doesn’t address those kind of coaching rumors in-season, because there’s so much more football to play, and there’s so many bigger things to focus on. But he’s actually going to do things differently today in their team meeting – he is going to address those (Florida) rumors with his players. He’s going to talk to them about it and say: ‘Hey, this is what happens when you win. This is a compliment to our players, our staff and our entire program.’ He wants to talk to his players about it because there’s so many new guys on their team this year that haven’t dealt with it before.”
It appears that Kiffin is using the Florida job rumors to extract more money from Ole Miss, but we’ll have to wait and see how much the Gators can actually lure him away from Mississippi.