Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin admitted that the Gators were very interested in hiring Lane Kiffin, but that interest was not necessarily reciprocated.
Stricklin admitted the Gators reached out to Kiffin after deciding to fire Billy Napier on Oct. 19. Kiffin, he said, was initially enthusiastic, but things changed after that.
“There was a flurry of initial engagement, I would say. Really positive conversations,” Stricklin told On3’s Andy Staples. “Then communication became a little more erratic. The timing of when that began to occur, kind of just reading the tea leaves, gave me the impression that it’s a good thing we talked to other people and we’re going to have to look at some other candidates.”
NEW: Florida AD Scott Stricklin detailed the Gators' pursuit of Lane Kiffin with @AndyStaples👀
— On3 (@On3sports) December 8, 2025
“There was a flurry of initial engagement, I would say. Really positive conversations. Then the communication became a little more erratic…
Just reading the tea leaves gave me the… pic.twitter.com/UEvBfSTzXy
While Stricklin does not lay out the exact timeline, LSU fired Brian Kelly one week after Florida parted ways with Napier. The implication is Kiffin was interested in the Florida job until the LSU one opened up, at which point that became Kiffin’s clear priority.
Publicly, Florida was out of the running for Kiffin even before he made the decision to leave Ole Miss for LSU. The Gators wound up hiring Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall instead.
Kiffin certainly sounds like he was ready to leave Ole Miss pretty early on. The only question was his ultimate destination, and once the LSU job opened up, Florida got the sense that the debate had quickly been settled.
