COLLEGE STATION — The joke began circulating in Texas A&M circles the second Auburn fired Bryan Harsin on Halloween: A&M coach Jimbo Fisher might have to face vicious Lane Kiffin twice in two weeks — and no Aggie wanted that.
While Mississippi’s vagabond coach appears to be a strong candidate for the abruptly open Auburn gig, there’s no way he’d be in place in time to coach against A&M on Nov. 12 in Jordan-Hare Stadium (it’s still all about 2023).
Thankfully for Fisher, because Kiffin is 2-0 against the Aggies while in charge of the Rebels. If Kiffin, too, had five dollars for every time he referenced A&M’s bevy of five-star signees in the class of 2022 … he could pay Harsin’s $15.3 million buyout at Auburn (in reality Kiffin would have about 50 bucks, but you get the point).
Kiffin, 47, even turned his taunts toward A&M’s players in No. 11 Mississippi’s 31-28 victory at Kyle Field last Saturday night. Cameras caught him yelling at Aggies safety Bryce Anderson, for instance, one of multiple A&M defenders to drop to the grass and have trainers check on them while the up-tempo Ole Miss offense was forced to pause and the Aggies defense regrouped.
“I was just having fun with them,” Kiffin said. “Those kids are highly energetic and, like a lot of five stars, kind of fun to mess with. It was all good.”
Whatever the Aggies (3-5, 1-4 SEC) tried in using the rules to their favor didn’t work, considering they lost their fourth straight game in a season for the first time since 2005 under then-coach Dennis Franchione.
Fisher never came close to losing four straight games at his previous job, Florida State, and the Seminoles only lost more than four games once in his eight years in Tallahassee, Fla., and that was when he already had his eyes on A&M in the fall of 2017.
Meantime, typically-measured A&M defensive lineman Albert Regis did not consider Kiffin’s taunts toward his fellow collegians “all good” — not by a long shot.
“We’re the ones playing, he’s coaching, that’s how I look at it,” Regis said. “… Yeah, you can run your mouth but at the end of the day … you probably played before but now you’re coaching. I respect what you do, but let’s keep it like that. We don’t need to have coaches bickering at players — that shows no class.”
Fisher said he’ll let the Southeastern Conference handle the chattiness of Kiffin, who’s become A&M’s version of “Jason” from the “Friday the 13th” movies — he won’t go away.
“Listen, I’m not going to get into all that, I’ll let the league and everybody else handle how they’re going to handle that … I’ll be quiet,” Fisher said of Kiffin yelling at A&M players during the game. “I can’t … it’s amazing.”
The Aggies host fellow SEC dawdler Florida (4-4, 1-4) at 11 a.m. Saturday and are favored to snap the losing streak. A&M must win at least three of its final four games (Florida, at Auburn, Massachusetts and LSU) to qualify for a bowl.
Fisher, who makes more than $9 million annually, is one of the nation’s highest paid coaches, and the Aggies last failed to be eligible for a bowl in then-coach Mike Sherman’s first season of 2008. All that Aggie angst has Kiffin snickering.
“You’re playing some of the best high school players ever, and the best recruiting class in the history of football over there,” Kiffin said after beating the Aggies and all their “five stars.”
Much of this mostly one-sided ruckus stems from A&M’s top-ranked recruiting class in 2022, rated by 247Sports as its No. 1 all-time class based on a points system. Alabama coach Nick Saban in May told a gaggle of Alabama business leaders that A&M “bought” its entire class, later adding legally under the new NIL (name, image and likeness standards) once his “bought” sentiment understandably angered Fisher.
Kiffin had joked around signing day in February that A&M should pay a “luxury tax” on its highly rated class. Fisher referred to SEC coaches who would push that kind of narrative about A&M as “clown acts.”
“When someone attacks you personally and calls you and your buddy, coach Saban, both clowns, you take it personal,” Kiffin said after another win over the Aggies. “I’m glad we won. I guess I can be a clown for Halloween.”
Kiffin’s relentlessness has Aggies circling Nov. 4, 2023, as perhaps a day for revenge, with A&M and its plethora of five stars scheduled to visit Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Who knows if Kiffin will even be at Ole Miss, however, considering he’s been the head coach of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, the University of Tennessee, Southern Cal, Florida Atlantic and Mississippi all in the last 15 years.
The Aggies open SEC play next season with Auburn on Sept. 23 at Kyle Field. A&M fans should circle that day along with Nov. 4, just to be safe. Meanwhile, Kiffin won’t shut up.
“I’ve coached for a few years and I always shake hands with the head coach before the game, like I was taught,” Kiffin said of his (lack of) pregame interaction with an obviously irate Fisher last Saturday. “I stood out there for a while and he never came over, so I don’t really know what the issue is … It is what it is — (you) can’t control other people.”
