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Sam Hutchins, he covers Ole Miss Football for Clarion Ledger, and he's had a lot to report on.

Sam, thanks for joining us.

When did you start to think that Lane Kiffin was gone?

You know, I'd like to say, I was going back to Occam's Razor.

I think that's what it is.

Like the simplest explanation is probably the most reliable, right?

And there were just a hundred small things that he would have done differently over the last, you know, four weeks, six weeks if he were staying. So I think it was, at least for me, I'm not sure there was one moment. I think it was a slow drip of realization that, man, like, why would you do that or why would you say that

or why would you phrase something like that if you're going to stay in Oxford? So it was more

of a slow drip for me than I think a sudden realization. Trying to understand what happened in

the meeting with the athletic director, did he want to stay,

that he threatened to take coaches, that he threatened to take players? Was he trying to leverage

this where he could still coach Ole Miss in the playoffs? Yeah, yeah, I think the college football

playoff was throughout this whole process was definitely Ole Miss's best carrot to dangle, right?

And not only because Lane's never coached in one for,

but you sort of are setting him up to be the villain if he leaves the college football

playoffs. So I think that Keith Carter and that realization had set in pretty firmly in Oxford,

even, you know, after the Egg Bowl pretty firmly in Oxford even you know

after the Egg Bowl or we were waiting you know refreshing on on Saturday for

this whole coaching search before it even unfolded Sunday but yeah Lane that was

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