By: Robert Craft

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Florida is aggressively pursuing Lane Kiffin to become its next head coach. That has become obvious in the first month of the program’s search to replace Billy Napier.

Since day one, Kiffin has been Florida’s top choice for many reasons; he’s a sentiment shared by athletic director Scott Stricklin and one of Florida’s most influential boosters and fans.

Florida’s  interest has unsurprisingly already led to conversations between the Gators and Kiffin’s camp in recent weeks. While Kiffin is not directly involved yet, multiple sources confirm the Gator athletic department is making preliminary moves.

Beyond the clarity of the aforementioned pursuit, not much is clear at all regarding who UF will ultimately end up with.

No clear Plan B has emerged in Florida. Potential candidates such as former Penn State head coach James Franklin and Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz have been floated as only potential candidates, but nothing more.

Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham privately turned down a spot in the candidate line behind Kiffin.

Washington head coach and UF alumnus Jedd Fisch has gone unmentioned as an option regarding plan B. It currently appears he is not seriously being considered for the role at this time.

Southern California’s Lincoln Riley, Louisville’s Jeff Brohm and Georgia Tech’s Brent Key  are externally viewed as possible candidates; however, their internal standing on Florida’s board is unknown. We will have to wait and see what they do.

Call it bold, call it risky, call it whatever term you prefer, Florida’s coaching search can be summarized succinctly as ‘Lane Kiffin or bust.’

While their resumes are starkly different, that reality bears some similarity to UF’s pursuit of Napier four years ago: Stricklin zeroed in on one coach and one coach only, and it’s the hire he made.

While this coaching search has come with much more public consensus about who the “right” hire would be, Stricklin’s seemingly go-for-broke approach is no less precarious. If anything, it comes with even more pitfalls. And continuing to hire head coaches  won’t get any easier.

Kiffin’s Rebels are all but certain to secure their first College Football Playoff berth in program history this postseason, with the first round kicking off on Dec. 19.

It would mark an unprecedented move for a coach to move on from a playoff team in the midst of its run.

The situation begs several critical questions. Among them:

How willing is Florida to be very patient for its top target?

Is Kiffin planning to leave Ole Miss at all?

If he is, but intends to coach the Rebels’ playoff run, would a handshake agreement be enough for the Gators?

If it all falls apart and Kiffin ultimately spurns UF, what would Florida do next?

It’s that last question that presents a rather considerable red flag.

The inherent risk in Florida’s approach to selling out for Kiffin is its potential backup options are currently having hiring conversations, if not making agreements with other programs, or their current program is taking the opportunity to lock them in.

Franklin, for example, is in talks with Virginia Tech for the Hokies’ head coach opening. Dillingham said he’s staying put at Arizona State. Brohm is reportedly discussing an extension with Louisville. Indiana’s Curt Cignetti signed a lucrative contract extension last month, three days before Napier was fired.

Florida’s engagements with non-Kiffin candidates or their camps have been limited to early-stage conversations about whether or not they would be willing to get in line behind the current Ole Miss coach.

Internally, there is a sense of confusion regarding what Florida’s backup plan would be.

The hope, of course, is that one isn’t needed. The worry is that one could be.

Kiffin is the most prominent perceived candidate of the 2025 college football coaching carousel for good reason. He turned Ole Miss into a team nobody wants to face year-over-year after decades of mediocrity.

Since John Vaught’s 1970 retirement, the Rebels have finished the season ranked only 10 times. Kiffin’s Ole Miss has won 10 or more games in four of his six seasons at the program’s helm; the team had only reached that mark seven times in its history prior to his arrival, including just twice in the 2000s.

Accordingly, Florida is not alone in its pursuit of Kiffin.

LSU, which fired Brian Kelly shortly after UF dismissed Napier, is targeting the 50-year-old. Kiffin is also rumored to be a person of interest for several NFL head coaching openings, including the New York Giants, where his former Rebels quarterback, Jaxson Dart, was a first-round pick this past offseason and has since turned heads.

Not only is Kiffin staying put in Oxford a threat to the Gators, so is the possibility that they simply finish second in the race to secure his services.

Florida feels like a high-performance vehicle pushing to its speed limit. It’s tearing down a narrowing road at a rate that leaves no margin. The wall ahead isn’t theoretical. It’s visible and closing fast.

The only thing between that machine and a catastrophic collision is Kiffin. He’s the emergency brake, the last-second steering correction, the only mechanism that keeps a reckless trajectory from becoming a ruin. But he is not a sure thing.

If the Kiffin plan connects, the whole thing could level out, the wheels grabbing just enough road to survive and potentially flourish.

If it doesn’t, though, and that single-coach system fails, then there’s presently nothing left between the Gators and catastrophic impact. No airbags. No backup plan. No Lane to save them. Just a spectacular, violent crash no one in the Gator Nation can afford.