Gators’ rich history does not cover up warts of the Florida job

ESPN’s Rece Davis ruffled some feathers recently when he said on his College GameDay podcast that Lane Kiffin has a better job right now at Ole Miss and if he takes the Florida job, if and when it opens, it would be a lateral move.

“Not because (the) Ole Miss (job) is better than Florida right now,” Davis said. “It’s because they can get in on players now, they’re aligned with their NIL, he makes the decisions, he’s in charge. Lane has a better job.”

The Florida crowd will play its greatest hits: National championships, SEC titles, Steve Spurrier, Urban Meyer, Tim Tebow, The Swamp and so forth.

It’s true. The Gators have a rich and rightfully proud football history.

And that’s exactly what it is: In the past.

Since coming to Ole Miss, Kiffin has won more than 71 percent of his games. Florida has had three-straight losing seasons and looks destined for a fourth as coach Billy Napier could go down as one of the shortest-tenured coaches in program history.

Despite Napier saying at his Monday press conference that he “100 percent” sees a path to a fourth year at Florida, there are some that are surprised he’s seeing a fourth game this season. The boosters are aching to rid themselves of Napier, who’s now 12-16 in his third year and didn’t win more than three SEC games in either of his first two.

Since the end of Meyer’s dominance, Florida has won only 59 percent of its games. It has churned through Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain and Dan Mullen and now looks ready to fire Napier at any moment.

Ole Miss has not exactly torched its way through the SEC during that stretch but naysayers of Davis’ statement need to stop rehashing the past and look to the future.

Florida’s collective is a mess and no matter what restructuring has been done, the group will always be tagged with the Jaden Rashada debacle. That is a real challenge that needs to be overcome.

Other than a few talented players that followed Napier from Louisiana and Ricky Pearsall, have the Gators killed it in the portal? Napier didn’t want to or couldn’t pay up for portal players when he got to Gainesville so guess what, not a lot of superstars came. Ole Miss and Kiffin have dominated the portal.

Florida is without a full-time president and an athletics director by all understanding in Scott Stricklin who’s on the hot seat himself. Top recruits being courted by Georgia, Alabama, Miami, Ohio State, Florida State see stable coaching situations. Not in Gainesville.

Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yuracheck told the Little Rock Touchdown Club recently that Ole Miss has about 5,000 members in their football collective and then begged for more Arkansas fans to donate money.

The reason I know he said that is because Walker Jones, former Under Armour exec who now leads Ole Miss’ The Grove Collective, has the speech pinned on his X profile.

If Napier is fired and if Kiffin is the No. 1 target and the Florida boosters, so sick and tired of being mediocre after having the taste of greatness for all those years, backs up the Brinks truck for him, maybe Kiffin takes the job.

The history is there. It’s undeniable that Florida has a richer football history than Ole Miss.

But Kiffin has the Rebels rolling. They’re a top-five team and the Gators are 5.5-point favorites this weekend against Mississippi State, which just lost 41-17 at home to Toledo. It’s a shock they’re favored at all.

Sure, Florida has a stronger recruiting base but Mississippi is loaded with talent as well and in today’s transfer portal era, location means far less in building a roster than when everybody came from the high school ranks.

There have always been rumors that Kiffin isn’t exactly enamored with staying at Ole Miss for his entire career. He wanted the Auburn job badly, he wanted the Alabama job badly when Nick Saban retired, he was rumored to be the top candidate at Florida State if Mike Norvell left for the Bama job.

But his team is absolutely loaded for a run at the national championship, Florida is an unmitigated mess on and (maybe even more importantly) off the field, Kiffin has had tremendous success in the portal and the biggest reason of all – Ole Miss’ collective is locked, stocked and ready to roll.

Leaning on the past, Florida is the better job but in today’s current climate, the Gators have a lot of issues to rectify. A lot.

Davis was not wrong: Kiffin might field better job offers because of his success at Ole Miss but Florida isn’t one of them.

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