Chasing Lane: Why Kiffin isn’t necessarily the right choice for Florida

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Even though Florida was on a bye this week, two things happened that could potentially affect the direction of the Gators program.

First, LSU fired head coach Brian Kelly after an ugly loss to Texas A&M. That may have started the debate about whether Florida or LSU is a better job, but there is no debate that both schools now have real competition for whomever they target as the next head coach.

Second – and perhaps more importantly – Ole Miss beat a solid Oklahoma team on the road. The Rebels now have a 7-1 record with only South Carolina, the Citadel, Florida, and at Mississippi State left on the schedule.

Lane Kiffin is going to be in the playoff folks. That seriously complicates the timing of any decision that he, or Florida, might have to make.

But is that a bad thing?

The risk of a college head coach

I actually think Kiffin is a fine choice for Florida as head coach. In fact, I think he’s really the only current college head coach that Florida fans and pundits have on their lists who is worth the risk.

But let’s be clear: hiring Kiffin is a risk.

Kiffin currently makes $9 million per year. Kirby Smart makes $13.2 million. The starting salary for Kiffin will be north of Smart.

But Florida has also set a precedent with Billy Napier that they will OK contracts that don’t have offset language (i.e. Napier got the majority of his money and Florida had zero leverage for a buyout). Kiffin currently has a contract that runs through 2031 with Ole Miss, meaning if Florida wants to give him the same level of security, we’re talking about a 5-year deal at somewhere in the $14-15 million range.

That’s a $70-75 million risk.

And if we look at college football history, it is a risk. Since the year 2000, there have been 15 coaches who have won national championships at 13 programs (Ohio State and LSU have won with different coaches). Of those 15 coaches, 8 of them were hired from another college head coaching position and 7 were hired without college head coaching experience.

That means every list that we see that goes from Kiffin to Lincoln Riley to Eli Drinkwitz (ugh) to James Franklin is ignoring half the pool of potential candidates. Guys like Kirby Smart, Ryan Day, Dabo Swinney, and Jimbo Fisher all were highly thought of coordinators who were given an opportunity and have succeeded.

But the other thing is that the risk doesn’t decrease significantly if Florida misses on Kiffin. Yes, you might not need to give Jedd Fisch $15 million per season, but he currently makes $7.5 million at Washington. That means you’re going to have to bump him up to $10 million at a minimum to get him to bite, and for someone with Fisch’s resume (16-21 record at Arizona, 12-9 record at Washington), that’s also a lot of risk.

Innovation and college football success

But perhaps the biggest risk is something I pointed out on X a couple of weeks ago before Napier was let go.

I’ve seen some version of this list with every high profile opening or potential opening. The Q I have is, by what principles is this list (or others) based on? Seems to me that Franklin would’ve been on many lists just 3 weeks ago. https://t.co/6IjCKuoQ68

— Will Miles (@WillMilesSEC) October 12, 2025

Everyone has the same list, but nobody can really tell me what differentiates any of these candidates. And that’s a problem because if we think about who has brought sustained success to programs, those guys are always innovators.

• Steve Spurrier – brought the Fun ‘N Gun to the SEC when it was a three yards and a cloud of dust league
• Urban Meyer – brought the spread offense to the SEC (even when people thought it wouldn’t work)
• Nick Saban – pioneering of pattern matching coverage schemes to combine man and zone principles to defend spread offenses
• Kirby Smart – took Saban’s recruiting process and put it on steroids, gobbling up vast arrays of talent in the southeast.
• Frank Beamer – “Beamer Ball” included a significant emphasis on special teams, and Beamer’s teams blocked more kicks in the 1990s than any other FBS team.
• Bobby Bowden – Fast Break Offense combined with a play anyone, anytime, anywhere scheduling philosophy that created TV exposure and recruiting success.
• Tom Osborne – Pioneered strength and conditioning programs to give Nebraska a physical advantage along with creation of the wingback position.

I find it hard to cite an example of a coach who has had significant success who hasn’t found an innovation somewhere that has given his program a competitive advantage. That’s why just picking a guy who worked with Saban (Muschamp, McElwain, or Napier) doesn’t work. That person has to have something about them that differentiates them from Saban because otherwise, he’s just a cheap knock-off.

Changing Landscape of CFB

But here’s where I think the landscape of college football has changed. I’m not sure that the head coach matters as much as he used to.

That’s not because there won’t be on-field innovations. Instead, it’s because I think there is more opportunity for innovation on the player acquisition side. With NIL and the transfer portal still in their relative infancy, there aren’t hard-and-fast rules that everyone can adhere to. That’s how you end up with Curt Cignetti turning Indiana into a powerhouse almost immediately. It’s also how you end up with Kiffin even considering staying at Ole Miss.

But that’s leads to what I think is a pretty obvious conclusion: if player acquisition is now where innovation can occur, then player acquisition becomes more important than on-field coaching ability. Or, perhaps, it is truly time to separate player acquisition from on-field coaching much more like it’s done in the NFL.

But the NFL is a poor example for this because it is a capped league. Instead, I think Major League Baseball is the better example, as it is an uncapped league where teams like the Mets and Dodgers spent north of $300 million in 2025 while the Marlins and A’s spent around $70 million.

Finding the Edge

And so that leads me to my suggestion for where Florida should put its $75 million instead of Lane Kiffin. I think the Gators should throw the kitchen sink at Los Angeles Dodgers President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman.

Friedman currently makes $7 million with the Dodgers. That means with the same raise they’d have to give Jedd Fisch, they potentially could lure Friedman to The Swamp.

You might criticize Friedman’s tenure with the Dodgers by citing his ability to spend big to bring in stars like Shohei Ohtani, but that misses two huge points.

First, Friedman’s deal with Ohtani absolutely stunned the baseball world because while it was announced as a 10-year, $700 million deal, he convinced Ohtani to take $680 million of that money in deferred payments. That freed up the Dodgers with more money in the present to build the team.

Ohtani wasn’t the only one who had this structure either. Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Blake Snell all have significant deferrals and the Dodgers have over $1 billion in deferred payments due from 2028 to 2046.

Given that the Dodgers won the World Series in 2024 and are in it again in 2025, it’s hard to argue with the strategy currently. But the other thing is that Friedman is the first baseball GM to take deferred money to this extreme. You might even call him an innovator when it comes to deferred contracts.

This isn’t the only time Friedman has shown innovation with contract structures. Before going to the deep-pocketed Dodgers, Friedman cut his teeth and the GM of Tampa Bay Rays. The then-Devil Rays had been terrible since its inception as an expansion team in 1998, played in a dump of a stadium, had the lowest revenues in MLB, and was constantly looking for a new stadium.

Friedman took over the moribund franchise in 2004 and had them in the World Series in 2008 and the playoffs in 2010, 2011, and 2013 as well. But it was how he got them there that I think is both instructive and innovative.

Evan Longoria was selected by the Rays with the third pick in the 2006 MLB draft. He made his debut with the Rays in that 2008 World Series season and was named the 2008 Rookie of the Year. Just a couple of days into that 2008 season, Friedman signed Longoria to a 9-year, $17.5 million contract before he had done anything at the major league level yet.

This became a standard practice for the Rays, as Friedman realized that if the Rays waited until a young player became a star to try to sign him, he would be too expensive for the team’s payroll limits. It also meant that if a young player didn’t eventually blossom into a star, their contract was attractive enough that they could trade them for valuable pieces. And if the player did become a star, their contract was extremely valuable in a trade.

These are two examples where Friedman took an innovative approach to an economic system without any caps. Perhaps not coincidentally, in 2007 the highest paid manager in baseball was the Yankees Joe Torre ($7.5 million) and the Rays were paying Joe Maddon $550,000.

Economic Innovation in CFB

The economics of college football and Major League Baseball are very different. Baseball has uniform player contract language that has been collectively bargained. College football has player’s fathers like Nic Iamaleava and Harlen Rashada playing major roles in their commitments.

But that means the landscape is even more ripe for innovation.

For example, could you go offer multiple NIL deals to 8th and 9th graders you thought might turn into 5-stars because you don’t have to worry about scholarship limits anymore? Could you use the deferred money strategy, where you boost a kid’s ego by offering him $30 million, but the present value of the deal is much lower because you have included deferred payments? Could you get NIL supporters to give equity in their business ventures rather than cash payments to build higher upside potential for high-value recruits?

I have no doubt that there are a multitude of ways to leverage the fact that there are zero rules when it comes to player acquisition right now. I also have no doubt that a guy like Friedman would be able to find creative ways to ensure that Florida always had the best players on the field at any given time.

From there, if you decide to pony up for Kiffin, then you’ll have a great X’s and O’s coach to help execute. But I think past history suggests you have just about as good a chance of having success with somebody else in that role. Could it be North Texas head coach Eric Morris ($950,000 base pay)? Or perhaps Brennan Marion, the inventor of the Go-Go offense ($750,000). Or perhaps Mack Leftwich, the offensive coordinator at Texas Tech ($300,000)?

Is that a risk?

Sure it is. But I think it’s a lot lower risk to hire someone like Friedman at a huge number and an up-and-coming coordinator for much less than it is to pour money into Eli Drinkwitz.

It’s also innovative, which is what it takes to compete in College Football. That much hasn’t changed.

Florida-Georgia Preview

I like Billy Gonzales and I hope he does well as Florida’s interim head coach. But unless Ryan O’Hara makes Billy Napier look like a complete incompetent, this game should be an easy Georgia win.

The Bulldogs rank 35th in yards per play on offense and 38th in the same stat on defense. That isn’t dominant on either side of the ball, which is why Florida does have a chance in this one.

But the Gators rank 82nd on offense and 76th on defense in the same stat. For all the talk about Florida’s struggles on offense, the defense hasn’t been as good as the final scores would indicate. Florida is a 2-4 team against FBS opponents and has earned it on both sides of the ball thus far.

As always, the X-factor for the Gators is QB D.J. Lagway. Lagway has looked lost and overwhelmed most times in 2025 after looking neither in 2024. If Gonzales and O’Hara can get him back to his 2024 level of play then Florida has real shot.

I’ll be watching with the rest of you to see if that’s the case, but I have a hard time believing that Napier was the only thing preventing this team from looking ready to go on Saturdays. Firing the head coach isn’t an automatic panacea.

Penn State lost to Iowa in Terry Smith’s debut after James Franklin’s dismissal. Arkansas is 0-3 under Bobby Petrino. Oklahoma State is 0-5 under Doug Meacham. UCLA and Virginia Tech have gone 3-2 since firing Deshaun Foster and Brent Pry. But the Hokies lost by 15 to its only ranked opponent in that time (Georgia Tech) and while UCLA knocked off Penn State, they just got waxed 56-6 against Indiana.

I have no doubt that the Gators will play hard. But I also have no doubt that habits that you build in March and April during spring camp and in July and August during fall camp matter more than any schematic changes you can make during a bye week.

I think Florida keeps this one close for the first three quarters, but that Georgia pulls away in the fourth quarter as Florida’s lack of secondary depth gets exploited.

Florida (+7.5) loses this one, 30-20.

Picks this year: 4-3 (4-3 ATS)