Former Ole Miss RB suggests Lane Kiffin Auburn football rumors were planted to distract from Rebels’ success

Former Ole Miss running back Zach Evans spoke at the 2023 NFL Combine and implied that the rumors of Lane Kiffin becoming the Auburn football head coach following Bryan Harsin’s October 31 firing was merely a plant to disrupt the team’s success.

Evans described a locker room in early November that was able to ignore it, but by the Egg Bowl matchup against Mississippi State on November 24, Kiffin had to address it. At that point, the Kiffin to the Tigers rumors had reached a fever pitch, and every single social media post the Rebels coach put out was taken as a potential sign he was Plains-bound.

After talking about how the team felt the rumors were ‘mind clutter,’ Evans than delved into conspiratorial territory in saying those talks existed solely for the purpose of being a distraction (h/t AL.com):

"“We started off the season 8-1. I mean, everybody wanted something to say. A lot of people didn’t like the success we were having, so we just got to stay together as a team and focus on the main thing, and that was winning.”"

Potential reason Lane Kiffin never became Auburn football head coach

Players in the Auburn football locker room were convinced the week of the Iron Bowl that Kiffin was coming. There was legitimate momentum for new AD John Cohen to make Kiffin his first major hire in his new role. Evans saying those talks were never real is just to save face for Ole Miss fans who grew frustrated in 2022 when the rumors coincided with loss after a loss in the final month of the season.

The most likely reason a deal wasn’t struck was because of the autonomy Kiffin wouldn’t have been granted in the head coach role. In Oxford, Kiffin calls the shots. In Auburn, he would’ve had to bend the knee to the brain trust regarding coaching hirings and other NIL related business. Carnell “Cadillac” Williams being named associate head coach under Hugh Freeze was something Kiffin may not have approved of, with his possible replacement being an Auburn man through and through.