How the College Football Playoff Selection Committee would view Ole Miss if Lane Kiffin leaves Rebels

Seventh-ranked Ole Miss will be heading to the College Football Playoff this season for the first time in program history after hitting the 11-win mark following Friday's 38-19 victory in the Egg Bowl over Mississippi State. The Rebels are expected to earn one of the selection committee's seven at-large selections unless there's SEC chaos that provides Ole Miss with an unexpected opportunity in the SEC Championship Game next weekend.

The Rebels' seeding will be determined by two factors -- what happens with Lane Kiffin's pending coaching decision and how the handful of teams ahead and behind Ole Miss in this week's playoff rankings finish up. Finality is expected Saturday for Kiffin, who is mulling an exit to LSU or a new contract with the Rebels.

Earlier this week, the selection committee pushed Oregon, which finishes at Washington, ahead of Ole Miss in the top 10. Two-loss teams Oklahoma, Notre Dame and Alabama were the teams behind the Rebels in the final three at-large spots.

Oxford mayor Robyn Tannehill told The Oxford Eagle this week the economic impact of hosting a College Football Playoff game would exceed $50 million, which is the average for an Ole Miss home game during the regular season. That number was $71.7 million for Georgia in 2024, and bringing a similar top 10 team to Oxford would result in the most-anticipated home game in program history.

The first round of the playoff is scheduled for the weekend before Christmas and Tannehill said the kickoff window matters as well. An afternoon game on Dec. 20 would have less of an economic impact than a night game the previous evening or the primetime window on Saturday. That would encourage fans to stay at a hotel.

The primary question, however, is will the committee keep the Rebels at No. 8 or better -- which is needed to host -- in their final rankings? Ole Miss won't have that answer until the updated rankings are released next week entering conference championships.

Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter told ESPN before Friday's game against Mississippi State that he was confident Kiffin would stay with the Rebels. If Kiffin leaves, he would then decide on taking his staff with him to his new program or letting them stay through the Rebels' playoff appearance.

Florida dropped out of the Kiffin sweepstakes on Friday. Per CBS Sports' Richard Johnson, it became clear last week that the Gators were "running third" behind LSU and Ole Miss, and they've been interviewing other coaches while Kiffin decides on his next move.

Committee chair Hunter Yurachek said last week on the playoff teleconference Ole Miss could be graded differently if it enters the postseason without Kiffin in charge. For now, no discussion has taken place about the Rebels in that scenario.

"We'll take care of that when it happens. I mean, we don't look ahead," Yurachek said. "It is the loss of a player, loss of a key coach is in the principles of how we rank the teams. But again, we don't have a data point for Ole Miss without their head coach."

Asked to clarify his comments if a coach leaving his team could negatively affect their postseason standing, Yurachek simply said "it could be considered by the committee" during their next meeting ahead of Tuesday night's penultimate top 25 after rivalry weekend.

Kiffin loosely mentioned this scenario earlier this month during an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show, deflecting the spotlight and boosting his players ahead of what was expected to be his sayonara in Oxford. While his offensive acumen is notable after schematically setting up transfer quarterback Trinidad Chambliss up for tremendous success, Kiffin hasn't thrown a touchdown pass, made a tackle or raced to the end zone this season for the Rebels.

"They're the ones making the plays, not me," Kiffin said. "All this success, all this credit and these things, it's because of the players and the assistant coaches putting it all together and making this stuff happen."

Prior to Yurachek's comments last week, a source close to the committee told CBS Sports that Kiffin leaving the program before the start of December would be viewed in a negative light.

Among the four principles the committee uses to split otherwise comparable teams, "other relevant factors" can include the "unavailability of key players and coaches that may have affected a team's performance during the season or likely will affect its postseason performance." 

The Florida State precedent was set in 2023 when the committee excluded the unbeaten Seminoles after Jordan Travis suffered a season-ending injury.

"I feel they aren't nuked like FSU," the source said.

The final voting process includes seven rounds of ballots. Members first select a pool of six teams to evaluate, then rank them in groups of four across four rounds before finishing the final three rounds in groups of three. In the second round of voting, the four teams slotted at Nos. 5-8 -- the first-round home-game seeds -- are determined. 

This is where a potential Kiffin departure could come into play.

Ole Miss playoff scenarios

• If the SEC goes chalk in Week 14 with wins for Texas A&M, Georgia, Oklahoma and Alabama with all of those teams finishing with double-digit wins, we expect the Rebels to get a first-round home largely due to their head-to-head win over the Sooners. The Kiffin dynamic may alter the conversation if the committee feels Ole Miss is no longer in the same tier as Oklahoma without its offensive-minded coach.
• However, if Alabama goes on to beat Texas A&M in the SEC Championship Game game, the Crimson Tide would be in line for a top-4 seed, which would push the Rebels to at least No. 8 in the final rankings next month.
• If Alabama and Texas A&M lose during rivalry weekend and the Rebels get to Atlanta, a possible second loss in the SEC Championship Game to Georgia could push Ole Miss back a peg or two in the final rankings. On the flip side, an unexpected conference crown would really put the pressure on the committee giving this program a top-4 seed even if Kiffin goes elsewhere.
• In short, for Ole Miss to lose a first-round home game opportunity, that would mean two of these three teams -- Oklahoma, Alabama or Notre Dame -- move ahead of the Rebels in the final rankings. Only one of those squads, the Crimson Tide, could have an opportunity to play a 13th game and provide another data point next week.
• Should Kiffin bolt to LSU, it's difficult to judge how harshly the committee will critique Ole Miss. Perhaps that could mean sliding the Rebels behind Notre Dame at No. 9, which puts Ole Miss on the road in the first round. The Fighting Irish will enter the playoff on a 10-game winning streak if they beat Stanford on Saturday and the head-to-head disadvantage with a possible 10-win Miami team does not come into play next weekend.