Lane Kiffin says changes will be made after 2022 season

Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss had a disappointing finale to the season, falling to Texas Tech 45-25 in the TaxAct Texas Bowl on Wednesday. The Rebels had a much stronger start to the season than their finish, and following the game, Kiffin was asked if any changes would be made within the program heading into the 2023 season.

“I’m not in jumping to conclusions because you lose a game, but you guys have been around here, we’ve won 10 games and made changes,” Kiffin said. “So we’ll look at everything in our program, I’m sure there’ll be some changes made in some areas.”

Ole Miss had an electric start to the year going 7-0 in their first seven weeks of the season, finding themselves in the top 10 of the polls ranked as high as No. 7 in the country with conference championship and College Football Playoff aspirations.

But in the Rebels’ last six games of the season, they only won one game, going 1-5 down the stretch and ending the season 8-5. It was a disappointing conclusion to a season that started off very promising, but Kiffin and the Ole Miss faithful know that they performed below the standard they’d like.

“Because I think the good thing about our fans they know about me, this is not acceptable, to however that makes us 8-5 and finish the season like that and come down here and do that. So there will be some changes made,” Kiffin said.

It’s hard to talk about making changes within a program these days without talking about recruiting, and more specifically the transfer portal, which Kiffin spoke about as it relates managing his roster of the future.

“And obviously in the recruiting, you got go right into this thing because now we’ve gotta figure out all these portal guys that are in the portal. Gotta make sure our guys aren’t getting bought, keep our own guys, so there’s a lot going on,” Kiffin said. “But staff and administration around the building and stuff, we’ll always look at that stuff.”

Ole Miss has already received six commitments from transfer portal players this offseason so far, headlined by former five-star wide receiver prospect Chris Marshall who was previously at Texas A&M. It will be interesting to see what other recruiting and staff moves the Rebels make this offseason, as they’ll look start off next season the same way they started this one, but finish a lot stronger.