Something Stinks Regarding Florida’s Timeline Of Events With Lane Kiffin

The LSU Tigers ended up winning the Lane Kiffin Sweepstakes early yesterday afternoon, as the former Ole Miss head coach announced he was abandoning his current team in the midst of their run to the College Football Playoffs for the greener pastures of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Depending on who you believe, the Florida Gators were either the favorites until the final few hours, a distant second, or were never in it to begin with.

Regardless, Kiffin won't be donning an orange and blue visor anytime soon, and what happened in between the time he was identified as Florida's top target and the day he accepted the LSU job will be hotly debated for years to come.

This is, in part, because of some messy messaging coming from the Gators' side of things and one thing is abundantly clear: something stinks when it comes to the official narrative of Florida's coaching search.

Let's break down the timeline and figure out exactly when and why things went sour.

Early Leaders

When the Florida Gators first fired head coach Billy Napier in October of this year, all eyes were suddenly trained on Oxford, Mississippi.

That didn't happen out of the blue.

According to multiple people I've spoken to that are close to the university, Kiffin was the top target for the Gators since September of last year, when Florida boosters had reportedly gathered the money to fund Napier's buyout before a decision to keep the embattled head coach was made by athletic director Scott Stricklin.

Regardless, now that Napier was out, Florida made it clear Kiffin was, in essence, the only man for the job.

Florida got an early lead in the race, but it became apparent just days later that they wouldn't be the only horse down the stretch.

LSU Enters The Mix

It was sort of an open secret in the world of college football that Lane Kiffin always wanted the Florida job.

He grew up idolizing Steve Spurrier.

He spent a large portion of his childhood/adolescence in Tampa.

His ex-wife, Layla, whom he is still very close with, is a UF alum and daughter of a former Gator quarterback (John Reaves).

The connections were all there to make this a slam-dunk hire.

Then LSU fired their coach a week after Florida.

What was once a clear path to Gainesville became a three-horse race between his current employer and two SEC powerhouses trying to get back to their winning ways of old.

Florida was still a coveted job for Kiffin, but now they had to jockey for position against one of the best landing spots in college football.

Crunch Time

As the race for Lane Kiffin started to come to a head, rumors swirled.

Reports of Layla Kiffin touring Gainesville high schools with son Knox would come out one day, only to be followed by rumors of brother Chris and other family members checking out the Baton Rouge area the next day.

But here is where things get interesting.

As the search began to wind down, it was reported as early as last week that Florida was out of the race for Kiffin.

Based on information that is now publicly available along with discussions I personally had with people close to the negotiations, that is simply not true.

We know that Lane Kiffin's representatives had multiple meetings with Florida as recently as a week and a half ago, and that communications were still going strong between the two parties heading into Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Things got quiet Thursday, presumably for the holiday and preparation for the Egg Bowl on Kiffin's side, and then Friday afternoon, mere moments before Ole Miss kicked off their final game of the season, we learned from Florida's beat writers that the Gators had bowed out of the race.

What Went Wrong?

Thanks to a CBS Sports story that was released earlier today, we know that Kiffin's interest in the Gators was mutual for a good portion of time.

If we couple what was written in the article with our currently constructed timeline, it's safe to assume negotiations fell apart late last week, much later than when the national narrative claimed they did.

But that still doesn't pass the sniff test.

In a now-deleted Spaces post on X, a disgruntled Florida booster claimed that one mega donor for Florida in concert with Stricklin made the unilateral decision to pivot away from Kiffin, citing a Friday deadline for him to inform them of his decision.

This caught both the boosters and beat writers, some of the most plugged-in people on the planet when it came to this search, completely by surprise.

That matches up with the timing of the post from Gators Online writer, Zach Alboverdi, above, but it was clear Kiffin was going to make his decision after the conclusion of the Egg Bowl, mere hours after the deadline.

It's clear other boosters knew Kiffin's timeline for a decision, so why did Stricklin and the mega booster set the deadline at such a disadvantageous time, when you were literal hours before the finish line?

Was it intentional, knowing he wouldn't give them a decision in time?

The mega booster in question was seen posting on a message board around Wednesday evening that Florida fans would like the backup option "even better than Kiffin."

According to at least one source I spoke to, this got back to Kiffin's people, and they were not happy, which perfectly coincides with communication breaking down after Wednesday.

What's more, the CBS Sports story reports that while Kiffin did indeed want the job, his carefree and sometimes mischievous attitude clashed with the more "buttoned-up" Stricklin.

And after Stricklin bristled at the idea of Kiffin having full control of the program (something LSU promised in their own negotiations with the coach), the die had been cast.

I believe Stricklin and the mega booster knew the negotiations were doomed by this point, and with momentum slipping, they pulled a "you can't break up with me because I'm breaking up with you" move to try and save face.

This, coupled with the fact that some of Florida's backup options signed extensions to stay at their current schools (namely Vanderbilt's Clark Lea) and Auburn sniffing around their number two option (Tulane's Jon Sumrall), spooked the decision makers into folding and moving on.

One final note that backs up the theory that Stricklin and company went completely rogue comes from the search firm Florida hired to help conduct their coaching search.

TurnkeyZRG was contracted early in the search to help Florida identify top candidates and narrow them down based on a number of factors (wins, fit, financial implications, etc.).

Lane Kiffin was reportedly, and unsurprisingly, the top dog on that list, while Sumrall was apparently eighth.

It is well documented that Florida was in partnership with Turnkey through a large portion of the search, while LSU was reportedly conducting their search without a firm.

So why, then, does a quick glance at Turnkey's website list LSU as a recent client while Florida is nowhere to be found?

The rumor is that Turnkey led their horse to water (in this case, Florida), but couldn't get them to drink it.

Having gotten so fed up with all the hard work they did only to have a select few torpedo their efforts in the 11th hour, they severed ties with the UAA and vowed never to work with them again.

Again, these are all rumors, but it makes too much sense to not at least be a smoking gun.

The final verdict: it would appear things were going well for the Gators to land their number one hire before a rogue decision by Scott Stricklin and one of their top boosters tanked the negotiations, whether intentionally or otherwise.

Believe what you will, but it adds up, and all of this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this will be one of the weirdest coaching searches of all time.

Florida got a head start on its coaching search, keyed in on one guy, then panicked when it appeared things weren't going as they anticipated (perhaps due to their own incompetence or intentional actions).

The lack of a proper backup plan left them exposed, and the messaging reflects that.

I hope Jon Sumrall works out, for his sake and mine as a Florida fan, but he's been set up to fail from the start as long as the leadership of the Florida Gators is still in place.

Good luck, coach Sumrall. You're going to need it.