Lane Kiffin is not afraid to roll the dice

The hiring of Lane Kiffin by Ole Miss is looking like one of the best moves in the coaching carousel that followed the 2019 season. The former Alabama offensive coordinator returned to the SEC as a head coach a decade after leaving Rocky Top, but things have changed a lot since then.

After using a traditional pro-style offense early in his career, Kiffin started to transition to a spread attack at Alabama and instituted some tempo principles. That became even more true in his three years as the head coach at Florida Atlantic.

Kiffin started to become a believer in analytics and that has shown up big-time as a head coach. Faced with game management decisions as the man in charge, Kiffin’s teams have consistently ranked at the top of college football in the number of fourth down attempts.

• 2017: 39 fourth down attempts (No. 1 overall)
• 2018: 44 fourth down attempts (No. 1 overall)
• 2019: 22 fourth down attempts (T-57 overall)
• 2020: 33 fourth down attempts (No. 3 overall)
• 2021: 49 fourth down attempts (No. 1 overall)

In all of those seasons, Kiffin’s offenses have only ranked outside of the top-40 in conversion rate in 2019 and that is the year that had the least amount of attempts. Last season. Ole Miss converted fourth downs at a 63.3 percent clip helping the offense extend drives and put points on the board.

Kiffin’s decisions are often data-driven based on “the book” that Ole Miss prepares before every game. The head coach explained his decision process at 2021 SEC Media Days to KSR.

“When you dive into the analytics, it obviously teaches you to play different. I think somebody said we were most fourth-down attempts or something in the country,” Kiffin said. “I know at FAU one year we were. That’s not — I think some people used to do that, just gunslinger mentality, I’m just going to go for it no matter what.”

“It’s not easy to follow. I think that’s why a lot of coaches struggle because it goes against how you were trained to coach and how you were trained to make decisions, especially when you watch the NFL, which until as of late, everybody just kicked. So it is hard to follow at times. I’d like to think that we follow it really well, which is why we end up being so aggressive.”

Once this season, Kentucky has faced an aggressive offensive approach as Florida elected to go for it on fourth down twice trailing by seven deep in its own territory with plenty of time remaining in the fourth quarter. Kentucky forced two Anthony Richardson incompletions, and the big plays helped the Wildcats seal the game.

Take out the COVID-19 year, and Kentucky has ranked in the top-15 of fourth down conversion rate peaking at No. 2 (27.8%) in 2021. Through four games this season the defense has come away with two big stops in critical moments.

On Saturday afternoon at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Kiffin’s fourth-down decision-making and the following success rate of Kentucky’s defense could go a long way to determining the outcome of a top-15 matchup. History tells us that Kiffin will roll the dice, but Kentucky usually stops offenses when risks are taken.