Lane Kiffin Talks Ole Miss Season Opener, Playoff Metrics, and SEC Scheduling
OXFORD, Miss. — It’s officially game week in Oxford as No. 21 Ole Miss prepares to host Georgia State at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday night. As is the weekly custom, head coach Lane Kiffin participated in the SEC Football Coaches Weekly Teleconference Wednesday.
While his attention is on the Panthers, the sixth-year head coach also addressed broader topics in college football this week, from playoff selection changes to the future of SEC scheduling.
Focus on the Opener
“Excited to get to game week here,” Kiffin said. “Our guys have practiced really well and had a really good camp. Hopefully we’re getting in better shape health-wise after a really tough camp. We were down some guys the last few weeks at different positions,” he explained.
The coach wants to make sure fans know this Georgia State team has some solid players and excellent coaches.
“This is a really tough game. That’s not coach-speak. These guys have a lot of transfers, a lot of really good players, really good coaches who have won championships coaching in the NFL. They know how to build a program, much like what they did at Georgia. We’re going to have to play really well. It’s why I said earlier in the week I hope our fans come early, stay late and they don’t think that this is not a really tough opponent, because it is. They’re much-improved roster-wise from a year ago and a year ago, they beat Vanderbilt. I’m excited to play at home, excited for it to finally get here.”
Lane Kiffin on Georgia State
Defensive Foundation and the Run Game
This season, Ole Miss will look to rebuild — or reload, as the case may be — around a defense that was one of the nation’s best in 2024.
“We have some really good players that either have been here or have been brought in that fit really good profiles — height, weight, speed, playmaking ability,” Kiffin said.
“We have to put them together and that’s the challenge. We’ve done a really good job the last two years at that — putting together different groups. We’ll have it again. Hopefully we’ll be led up front by the D-line.”
Lane Kiffin on Ole Miss defense
On the other side of the ball, much attention falls on a revamped rushing attack. “It’s almost all new — the majority of the running backs, the O-line,” Kiffin explained. “There’s a lot of new stuff there. We’ll see how it comes together, obviously hopefully better than last year,” he noted.
CFP Changes and Strength of Schedule
Beyond Saturday, Kiffin was asked about the new record strength metric that will be factored into College Football Playoff rankings this fall.
“I’m obviously not in charge,” Kiffin began.
“I think that that sounds good — the metrics and finally using it more. It should’ve been that way already. It’s kind of unfortunate that we’re that far behind other sports when they’ve already figured that out and we’re just now discussing this. I wish they would’ve had that more figured out and finalized versus, ‘Oh, it’s going to be used,’ and then you still have the humans deciding.”
Lane Kiffin on new strength of schedule metric
The record-strength adjustment works alongside the existing strength-of-schedule metric to weigh not just who teams play, but how they perform against those opponents. For Ole Miss, the change could be significant. Just last year, the Rebels were seen as a possible 9–3 team capable of slipping into the playoff conversation before ultimately landing in the Gator Bowl.
SEC’s Nine-Game Future
Looking further ahead, the SEC will move to a nine-game conference schedule in 2026. That means 10 high-level opponents each year, with only two non-conference “cupcake” games remaining on the slate.
“I just hope when you’re going to take the hardest schedules in the country, by far, and make them harder that you would know that is going to matter in the selection process and matter a lot,” Kiffin said.
“Because you look at the sports who does and it matters who you play, where you play, how hard they are (to defeat), and that’s how you end up judging win-loss records instead of just looking at win-loss records.”
Lane Kiffin
Ultimately, however, Kiffin made it clear this week that while big-picture changes in college football matter, his focus is on Georgia State.
Ole Miss and Georgia State kick off at 6:45 p.m. CT, and the game will be broadcast on the SEC Network.
Evelyn Van Pelt
Evelyn has covered sports for over two decades, beginning her journalism career as a sports writer for a newspaper in Austin, Texas. She attended Texas A&M and majored in English. Evelyn's love for Ole Miss began when her daughter Katie attended the university on a volleyball scholarship. Evelyn created the Rebel Walk in 2013 and has served as publisher and managing editor since its inception. Email Evie at: Evie@TheRebelWalk.com
