Lane Kiffin trolls reporter after rumor spreads over coaching future
A brush fire ignited on Twitter Monday night when journalist Jon Sokoloff tweeted that Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin was resigning from his current job and taking the open position at Auburn. After the report began circulating, Kiffin shot down the rumors with two tweets of his own.
In the first message, Kiffin told Sokoloff that his report was breaking news even to him. He then took to Microsoft Word -- or is he a WordPerfect guy? -- for a follow-up tweet that used Sokoloff's initial tweet as a template and jokingly suggested Sokoloff was moving from his current job to a local news competitor.
The Auburn-Kiffin rumors have swirled since the Tigers fired Bryan Harsin last month. The teams are division rivals and a move would create a lot of friction in the yearly meeting. Kiffin spent time as Tennessee's head coach in 2009 and he infamously left for a job as coach of the USC Trojans -- a move that led to Kiffin spending years rehabilitating his image under Alabama head coach Nick Saban once the Trojans fired him.
Kiffin's tweets suggest a move to Auburn isn't happening but people haven't forgotten what happened at Tennessee. People also remember Saban saying "I'm not going to be the Alabama coach," on December 21, 2006 before becoming Alabama's head coach on January 3, 2007.
This isn't the first time Ole Miss (8-3, 4-3 in SEC) and Auburn (5-6, 2-5 in SEC) have been intertwined in a coaching controversy. In 1998, Ole Miss head coach Tommy Tuberville told a radio audience, "They'll have to carry me out of here in a pine box" the Wednesday before the annual "Egg Bowl" against Mississippi State on Thanksgiving. (h/t Saturday Down South)
The day after a 28-6 Mississippi State win, Tuberville and Auburn reached an agreement to make him the team's head coach. (h/t New York Times)
Kiffin sets himself up to be a major villain in the sport -- Oxford, Ms. in particular -- if by the end of this week he announces he'll be Auburn's next head coach. If Kiffin is to be believed, he isn't going anywhere.
Per Sports Reference, in 11 seasons as a college head coach, Kiffin is 85-45 (.654). He has the third-best winning percentage in Ole Miss history (.676) and with wins against Mississippi State (7-4, 3-4 in SEC) on Thursday and in the team's bowl game, Kiffin will tie Tuberville for seventh-most wins (25) in program history.
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