Texas Football: Impact possible Lane Kiffin-Ole Miss hire has on Longhorns

If the Texas football program is to let their coaching vacancies go on too long, other programs like Ole Miss could get a jump in recruiting.

The Texas football program is seeking out a number of potential candidates to fill all their coaching voids. Head Texas football coach Tom Herman essentially cleared house, including both coordinators and both wide receivers coaches, on the day formally known as “Black Sunday”. Last weekend saw Texas part ways with the likes of former offensive coordinator Tim Beck (demotion to just quarterbacks coach) and defensive coordinator Todd Orlando (fired).

Yet, if the Texas Longhorns football program is to do the most effective coaching search possible, Herman really has to figure out how to piece together his next staff. This is likely to be the final opportunity that the Longhorns give Herman to just re-tool his coaching staff and give a second stab at finding success with this football program.

By no means would an eight win season be the worst that the Longhorns saw in the past decade. But the fact that an eight win season signals yet another step backward means that the fan base and media will continue to dial up the pressure on Herman and Texas athletic director Chris del Conte, and the patience will keep running thin.

Another well-known Power Five program that went through significant coaching changes starting on Black Sunday is the Ole Miss Rebels.

While the SEC West is a gauntlet and they’re going through tough sanctions from the coaching tenure of Hugh Freeze in Oxford, Ole Miss saw their patience run thin too. Former Ole Miss head coach Matt Luke saw the door after a four win regular season that kept them out of the postseason for the third year in a row.

Luke finished out his coaching tenure in Oxford with a record of 15-21. The problem seemed to be this year that Luke had a one win regression in each of his three years at the helm in Oxford. That is not the right trend for a program that seems to have high expectations now in the SEC West.

What also likely saw Luke out the door sooner rather than later was the disappointing loss to the in-state rival Mississippi State Bulldogs in the final week of the regular season on a missed extra-point attempt. Losing to Mississippi State is one of the quickest ways to lose value with the Ole Miss fans.

However, in the wake of Luke’s departure with the Rebels, a handful of interesting new coaching candidates emerged right away. One of the most intriguing is who might end up getting the job in the end, current Florida Atlantic Owls head coach Lane Kiffin.

Kiffin is reportedly expected to be named the Ole Miss head coach on Sunday evening this weekend (Dec. 8). This would be his fourth stop as a college football head coach at the FBS level.

Moreover, Kiffin is not shy to being a big-time head coach at a Power Five program. His two other head coaching jobs with Power Five schools came with the USC Trojans and Tennessee Volunteers. He’s also in his third year as head coach with Florida Atlantic.

The career coaching record for Kiffin currently sits at 60-34. He has nine years of head coaching experience in total at the FBS level. He also had a one year stint recently as offensive coordinator under head coach Nick Saban with the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Kiffin’s coaching record isn’t too shabby, but it doesn’t seem like any of his stops at Power Five programs ended well at all. Now, Ole Miss comes with less pressure and expectation than Tennessee and USC do.

But what impact does the possible hire of Kiffin with the Ole Miss program have on the Longhorns?

First and foremost, this hire speeds up the coaching carousel as the Longhorns need to fill multiple vacancies on Herman’s staff. If the head coaching hires at the FBS level continue to pile up this quickly during conference championship week, then Herman will need to speed up his coaching search for both coordinator jobs.

With the Longhorns looking into multiple former head coaches to fill their coordinator vacancies, this could also force Herman to speed up his process. Herman reportedly (thanks to Anwar Richardson of Orange Bloods) interviewed USC offensive coordinator Graham Harrell to replace Beck and former Rutgers head coach Chris Ash to replace Orlando. All that happened earlier this week, but there’s no reported offers coming their way yet.

It looks like Herman is going to need to speed things up no matter what. Harrell is a hotly contested coaching commodity at the moment.

Ole Miss and Texas are also intertwined in recruiting battles for numerous 2020 prospects. The most significant of which is former Ole Miss three-star linebacker commit, and IMG Academy product, Jaqwondis Burns. The 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions favors Texas to land the commitment of Burns of anyone else, as of Dec. 7.

All in all, the Longhorns have a lot of relevance with Ole Miss and their coaching search right now. The coaching carousel in college football all around the country heated up real fast last weekend, and the Longhorns were about the most turnover-heavy in terms of shifting assistant roles.