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Talk of Champions

Kiffin mess ‘perfect pressure test’ for Ole Miss’ front-leading organizational structure

Talk of Champions

OMSpirit

Sports

4.7677 Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ole Miss football general manager Billy Glasscock followed Lane Kiffin to LSU. 

The Rebels have interest in a reunion with Austin Thomas, among others. However, for the time being, they’ve had to make it work with the people actually in the building, including a shift in focus for Matt McLaughlin. 

McLaughlin serves as Ole Miss senior associate athletics director for strategy and cap management. He and Walker Jones, who heads up the Grove Collective, have taken up temporary offices at the Manning Center to lead the roster-building efforts in lieu of an interim general manager. 

Ole Miss signed 17 2026 recruits on Wednesday, the first of the Early Signing Period. The Rebels have room to add, too — then comes the NCAA Transfer Portal in January.

McLaughlin joined the Ole Miss Spirit’s Ben Garrett for a ‘Talk of Champions’ podcast to discuss. He also touched on current-roster retention and much, much more. 

ToC is powered by RiverLand Roofing. Call or text them today at 662-644-4297. Few, if any, are doing more for Ole Miss in the NIL (name, image and likeness) space than RiverLand Roofing. Visit them online at RiverLand Roofing.com.



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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello again, friends, and welcome inside at least for me, Ben Garrett, the Riverland Roofing Studios.

0:04.5

Riverland Roofing for all your roofing needs.

0:06.5

662-644-4297 Riverlandroofing.com.

0:10.1

Thanks to them, BNA Bank, Drew Moak of USA Benefits Group, Tannenhill, Carmen, real estate and title.

0:17.7

I mean, there's just estate and title, excuse me.

0:19.3

There's so many that have sponsored us and have really just thrown their support behind

0:23.7

this, not just through the last few weeks, but for months in this year and last year.

0:29.4

I mean, great people to support them.

0:31.9

Today with me is Matt McLaughlin.

0:34.0

Man, Matt, you as much as anyone in that at Ole Miss administration have had one hellacious

0:40.9

handful of days. You know, Billy Glasscock follows Lane Kiff and Ole Miss's general manager

0:46.1

to LSU. That means that you had to maybe pick up some duties you weren't expecting. First of all,

0:52.0

how you doing? How are you feeling? You got any sleep yet now that signing day's done? It's been a few weeks of no sleep. So,

0:59.3

you know, it just didn't pop up overnight. You know, we've been pretty, pretty locked in for the last,

1:05.6

you know, six weeks or so with stuff going on. So obviously happy to to jump in and help out keep the things

1:13.4

rolling. But yeah, man, this is, you know, Walker and I were actually talking about this yesterday.

1:18.1

You know, this was the perfect pressure test to our infrastructure. It's pretty, it's been pretty

1:23.8

seamless. You know, so it made it made us feel really good and even more confident about what we built here is just even when you have a departure like that, things just keep moving right along. We stay on track, stay on schedule. And there wasn't some big, you know, crazy thing that popped up where we're really put behind a deadline or behind the eight ball. So it's been really good.

1:44.3

You know, it's been stressful. It's been fun. But, man, I'll tell you the energy in the building right now makes it a fun place to come. I'm not my normal office. I'm over at Manning. Walker and I kind of moved into Manning for interim period, you call it. So it's been, it's been really good, though. Yeah, what's been the

2:00.7

what's been the vibe over there

2:02.7

that since you've had to move into an office that wasn't

2:04.8

your, you call it. So it's been it's been really good though. Yeah, what's been the what's been the vibe over there that since you've had to move into an office that wasn't yours, you know, like and fold into it. You know, what's the vibe, the mood, like you said, it's been pretty seamless. Obviously, you're going to lose some commitments. But Ole Miss still the vast majority of the class remained in place and old miss is still

...

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