I'd be very concerned if I had a daughter at ole miss and she got a text from Joey freshwater...

JaySugar said:

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I don't think he's going to make them a top 5 program. But I think he'll recruit at a higher level than Matt Luke. And beating them, similar to when they had Freeze, will be tougher.

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This.

He could have them winning games they shouldn't, but it will be short lived imo. Of all programs in the SEC Ole Miss has the least NCAA wiggle room because of the recent past.

What I'm looking for is significant strides in our program which I believe is coming as long as the recruiting stays at the current level. If you're the A & M football staff you control what you can and impact what you can , and don't spend a lot of time worrying about your competitors excepting the week you play them.

One way or the other Kiffin won't be at Ole Miss very long. He will either crash and burn, probably because of his mouth, or he will do quite well and move up the ladder to a more impressive gig. Either way, I don't suspect that he will last longer than 3 or 4 years.

Ole Miss is a pretty good hfc gig imo. I think your'e correct in that he won't be there for the long haul, but who would hire him that's a step up?

Joey Freshwater will encourage one of the most insufferable fanbases in the conference to let it all hang out. They're going to lean into being the "heel" of the SEC. He'll probably have them winning some games we don't expect.

He'll be gone in 2 years.

He will have to be a brilliant tactician to go bowling consistently. The talent level is not there to play with most of the conference most years.

We shall see how good he really is.

Pumpkinhead said:

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aggiehawg said:

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MuckRaker96 said:

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With all our wondrous superior talent and coaching and special magnificence, we've beat them by:

3 in 2012 with Johnny Manziel
3 in 2013 with Johnny Manziel
lost by 20 in 2015
7 in 2017
14 in 2018
7 in 2019

Now they're getting arguably one of the greatest offensive minds in football today. They are one of the teams we count as an automatic win every year in our quest to rise up past the big boys in the West. They just significantly upgraded. I'm not worried, but the football program sure should be.

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Three words: John Rhys Plumlee.

Kiffin will have his Johnny Manziel from Day One. Guy is athletic, elusive and major dual threat QB. With the right coaching of his supporting cast, O-line and receivers, they will have a very potent offense that is not that easy to defend.

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Plumlee couldn't throw very well though. He was so inconsistent at it, that they had to use a two-QB system shuffling that other 'throwing' QB in for many of the pass plays. Definitely a dangerous runner, but seems like he is going to have to significantly improve his passing accuracy otherwise the better defenses will much more easily be able to game plan against him.

Johnny was a really good passer in addition to runner. Plumlee wasn't even an adequate passer last year, which is why they had to keep swapping him out on obvious pass plays for that other QB.

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Don't think Kiffin can improve his passing mechanics? I do.

vander54 said:

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Why should we be worried?

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This won't age well.

I'm more worried about Morris being at Auburn.

Three year seems to be his normal stay with the exception of USC where I believe it was five and they left him at the airport.

They will surely be one of the teams we are supposed to beat but we won't. Those always show up on our schedule.

MuckRaker96 said:

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Now they're getting arguably one of the greatest offensive minds in football today.

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Put down the crack pipe. "Great offensive minds" aren't passed around like Tijuana hookers the way kniffen is. He's destined to be a coach for Miami of Ohio.

milner79 said:

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cevans_40 said:

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It's kept me up at night.

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Excessive hair loss here.

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biting my nails to the point of bleeding !

More concerned about Auburn hiring Morris!

JaySugar said:

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I was feeling really good about Ole Miss becoming irrelevant with Matt Luke. But now with the Kiffin hire, I'm wondering if the SEC West is going to be that much tougher.

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No, why r u worried? New army should be more worried about Joey freshwater coming to town.

Hell probably have them playing above par and then use it as stepping stone. If Ags cant beat him then we wont be beating lsu, bama, etc which means we are looking for a new coach and rebuilding. Again.

The love fest for lane kiffin on these boards is pretty crazy

If the guy was such a great coach he'd have been at a big program for a long time already and win som championships

Any poster who would rather have Lane Kiffin as the A&M football coach than Jimbo Fisher, please announce yourselves and state your case.

Kiffin took the ole miss job in part because he wants revenge on Saban for firing him in embarrassing fashion right before they won another championship. Something tells me that's not going to work out all that well for him.

Double Diamond said:

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I'd be worried. Kiffin will recruit. And Kiffin isn't the poor coach many think he is. Was tough in his lone year at Tennessee. And was actually pretty solid at USC. Had totally takin FAU up a bunch.

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He got fired mid season at USC and his win percentage there was almost identical to what Helton has had. Now to Kiff's credit he certainly hasn't tanked USC as a program like Helton (their recruiting is so bad it's almost unbelievable for a blue blood cfb program) but the talent level at USC was akin to the imbalance that Clemson has vs the ACC at this point.

Here is the national finishes for recruiting in the PAC back when it would matter for Kiffin. He got there in 2010, left in halfway through 2013.

2008 -- USC 4th Nationally, UCLA was 14th, Colorado* was 15th
2009 -- USC 2nd Nationally, UCLA was at 13th, Stanford was 21st
2010 -- USC 3rd Nationally, UCLA was 10th, Oregon was 12th
2011 -- USC 3rd Nationally, Oregon was 12th, Cal was 15th

His job at FAU has been pretty decent, but FAU has also had a top 3 class in the conference every year since 2015. While he definitely out performed Charlie Partridge, he won't be inheriting that sort of situation at Ole Miss.

What was left of Freeze's purchased assets are gone, and Ole miss is probably 10th or 11th most talented team in the conference and is 6th in the division.

Johnny had a redshirt year to learn. Kiffin will have him learning to pass.

vander54 said:

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Why should we be worried?

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Cause he cheats like a mother. Just wait until a few 5*s start showing up over there. Don't be surprised.

Double Diamond said:

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Johnny had a redshirt year to learn. Kiffin will have him learning to pass.

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In the case of Plumlee, an extra challenge is the kid is playing baseball. Kiffin won't be able to work much with him during the Spring. Have to wait until baseball season is over.

Also, while, Kiffin seems like a good OC/play caller...so was Rich Rod (Ole Miss' OC this year under Luke), so the question is not only will Kiffin have success for the first time at a major division program when he's mostly failed as a head coach everywhere else, but offensively, is he really that much more skilled than a guy like Rich Rod?

He definitely is a 'name' hire and Ole Miss has won the press conference and got threads like this going on message boards.

I would rather have Jimbo. But I was all aboard on getting Kiffin before Jimbo.

Kiffin is a way better offensive mind than RR. Kiffin has adapted to trying new stuff. But still has the ability to go back to his west coast style. RR is an option football guy. Not real elite in his pass concepts.

Kiffin hasn't failed as a head coach. One awful season at USC. A few pretty solid ones. Was real tough his one year at Tennessee.

This is his 6th job in 12 years, so it seems unlikely that he'll be there for long.

No one other than FAU & Ole Miss want "one of the greatest offensive minds in college football today."

Let that sink in. This will be Tennessee 2.0. He'll be back in the Group of 5 in 3 years.

Quote:

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2008 -- USC 4th Nationally, UCLA was 14th, Colorado* was 15th
2009 -- USC 2nd Nationally, UCLA was at 13th, Stanford was 21st
2010 -- USC 3rd Nationally, UCLA was 10th, Oregon was 12th
2011 -- USC 3rd Nationally, Oregon was 12th, Cal was 15th

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Kiffin probably had some immaturity issues. But he also inherited a challenging situation. Within a few months of hiring, the NCAA hammered them worse than expected:

-3 year bowl ban
-lost 10 ships/ year for 3 years

2010, signed 19 (7 drafted in the 2010 draft)--before first season started
2011, signed 20 (9 drafted)-----before second season, his best
2012, signed 14 (3 drafted)---before 3rd season, which put him on the hot seat
2013, signed 11 (4 drafted)----before being fired midseason

Pete GTFO at the right time. The athletes were highly rated. The depth issues caught up with them. They fired him after barely beating Utah State (which turned out to be a good team) and a 3 TD loss @ ASU (also turned out to be a good team).

Considering what he had to deal with, he probably should have been evaluated at the end of the season. I dont know if he has grown up. He had a great record at FAU. They beat the fire out of of their conference.

Double Diamond said:

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Kiffin hasn't failed as a head coach. One awful season at USC. A few pretty solid ones. Was real tough his one year at Tennessee.

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Didn't fail as a head coach? What? There was a reason he was the head coach of FIU last season.

Got a blue blood job too early. Was fired in embarrassing fashion. That'll damage anyone. It still wasn't a bad run.

Double Diamond said:

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Got a blue blood job too early. Was fired in embarrassing fashion. That'll damage anyone. It still wasn't a bad run.

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His resume as a coordinator is fine. His resume as a head coach however is a different story. He failed as a head coach in the NFL with a 5-15 record. He went 7-6 at Tennessee and then screwed them over walking out on them after just one year. That was obviously a major fail from any Vols fan perspective. Then there was the USC thing. His HC stops were shaky enough that he had to go into Nick Saban's now famous coach rehab program to repair his career and image.

The hope from an Ole Miss perspective is that Kiffin now in his mid-forties has greatly matured and learned from his mistakes...and we'll see...

Look at what was happening:

The Raiders were a disaster for most of Al Davis's last 20 years. Davis hired coaches he could push around. Kiffin was not ready for that job, but how do you turn it down?

UT went 5-7 the year before and their recruiting had fallen down. Their crossover games in Kiffin's year were Bama, Auburn, and OM in one of their few good Nutt years. Kiffin, IIRC at least brought in a decent recruiting class. Then his dream job opened up at USC after the bowl when Pete Carroll announced.

He did not aquit himself at USC, but it was a raw deal. The AD who hired him was gone once the sanctions hit. The new AD was looking for the first plausible reason to fire him.