Wetzel: Was Al Davis right about Lane Kiffin?

"Lane Kiffin will always regret it if he quits on his Ole Miss team. He'll always have remorse if he decides to go take another job -- Florida or LSU -- right on the verge of leading a likely 11-1 Rebel team into the College Football Playoff. He'll never live down the fact he turned his back on a locker room ready to fight with him for a national title -- all for the perceived greener grass of Gainesville or Baton Rouge."

"What kind of coach would do that? This has nothing to do with what job offers more advantages or money or proximity to talent. It has nothing to do with the long term. Timing is everything in life. Sometimes for the positive, sometimes not. That's how it works. Adults deal with it. Kiffin may be free to walk from the Rebels, but everyone else is free to judge him if he does. If he does, that judgment won't be positive."

"Kiffin, 50, knows drama and setbacks. USC fired him at an airport. Nick Saban bounced him as an Alabama assistant just days before a national title game, convinced he was too focused on his next job as the coach at Florida Atlantic. Al Davis dumped him from the Oakland Raiders and declared he had been "conned" into hiring him in the first place. Kiffin also knows he has rebuilt his reputation, especially of late in Oxford. A better coach. A better father. A better person. When not discussing football, he talks about how balanced, sober and happy his life has become. "The whole good old days ... I'm in them right now," Kiffin said Saturday after defeating, coincidentally, Florida. "I just think people don't realize when they're in them. And then they get older and they say, 'Remember that it was great back then?' You know, I'm just fortunate to be in them.""

Lane Kiffin faces a pivotal choice about leaving Ole Miss before a season that could finish 11-1 and reach the College Football Playoff. Leaving now would create lasting remorse for abandoning a locker room poised to compete for a national title and would invite harsh public judgment. Timing and optics matter more than money or long-term benefits in this moment. Kiffin's career includes dramatic setbacks — being fired at an airport, being bounced by Nick Saban, and being dumped by Al Davis — but he has rebuilt his reputation in Oxford as a better coach, father and person. Ole Miss is 10-1 heading into the season finale against Mississippi State.

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