Lane Kiffin is playing some mind games with the head coach of his Week 4 opponent.
The Ole Miss Rebels coach had some high praise for Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall ahead of their clash on Saturday. Kiffin essentially predicted that Sumrall has an SEC head coaching job in his future thanks to Tulane’s success.
“I told my staff yesterday, I said, ‘I feel like I’m going to be in head coach’s meetings in the conference’ — I think our first one is in January — ‘with Coach Sumrall.’ So, it’s funny you bring that up,” Kiffin said, via Griffin McVeigh of On3.
The chatter about Sumrall does not come out of nowhere. The Green Wave went 9-5 last season and are off to a 3-0 start this year. Sumrall has started to gain a lot of attention for the work he has been doing at Tulane, and rumors of a bigger job being in his future have already started.
Kiffin, of course, wants to beat Tulane this week. Throwing in some speculation about their head coach’s future ahead of the matchup probably is not a coincidence.
Ironically, there is a chance Sumrall could be a candidate to replace Kiffin at Ole Miss, if some longstanding rumors wind up coming true. That might even be part of Kiffin’s thinking. After all, the guy is not shy about publicly trolling would-be rivals.
