There’s only one winner in the Nico Iamaleava-Tennessee breakup, and it’s neither of those parties.

UCLA won this divorce. Everyone else lost.

The saga reached a can’t-make-this-up conclusion on Monday, when Tennessee secured a transfer quarterback to replace Iamaleava – and it’s the quarterback UCLA nudged aside in favor of the Tennessee turncoat.

Joey Aguilar is expected to transfer to Tennessee, four months after he transferred from Appalachian State to UCLA. Bruins coach DeShaun Foster got a look at Aguilar this spring and decided he’d rather have Iamaleava as his starter.

So, there you have it. Tennessee dines on UCLA’s scraps.

Oh, and UCLA also reportedly plans to add Iamaleava’s brother, Madden, a true freshman quarterback who would transfer in from Arkansas.

Iamaleava emerged a loser. So did Tennessee. Only UCLA upgraded its situation, acquiring a talented quarterback on a cut-rate deal.

Nico’s left with reputational damage to remedy. His camp engaged in negotiation stupidity when Iamaleava jilted an upper-tier SEC program coached by a proven quarterback developer in favor of a worse team.

Iamaleava tried to leverage Tennessee for a raise, and when that didn’t work, he absorbed a significant pay cut to transfer to UCLA, while moving from a state without state income tax to one with a wallet-stinging tax rate. Dave Ramsey would cringe.

Tennessee fans celebrated a brief victory lap as Iamaleava’s fate unfolded, while retaining hopes that coach Josh Heupel would plunder a quarterback upgrade. Alas, Tennessee couldn’t pry loose a premier quarterback at the 11th hour, and Heupel landed on a quarterback who completed 18 of 41 passes against Clemson last season.

Tennessee’s pickup of Aguilar ranks as the 86th-best transfer quarterback acquisition of the offseason in the 247Sports rankings. UCLA’s bargain buy of Iamaleava ranks first, although Miami and Carson Beck might like a word.

Josh Heupel wins press conference, loses offseason

After Tennessee refused to cave to Iamaleava’s quest for a lofty raise, Heupel declared “no one is bigger than” the program. Heupel won the news conference that day, but he’s losing the offseason.

Good luck finding a scout who would say the Vols wound up with the more talented quarterback in this switcheroo.

Tennessee’s transfer class ranks among the SEC’s worst. The Vols would do well to apply the cost savings of swapping Iamaleava for Aguilar to sweeten the roster with a few last-minute additions. Their depth chart is inferior to last season’s that got Tennessee to the first round of the College Football Playoff.

Aguilar will compete with redshirt freshman Jake Merklinger, Tennessee’s third-string quarterback in 2024, and true freshman George MacIntyre for the starting job.

Aguilar’s experience looms large, but peg Tennessee’s quarterback situation within the bottom 25% of the SEC following this quarterback swap with UCLA.

The purpose here isn’t to knock Aguilar. How could you not pull for the guy after UCLA pulled the rug out from under him? Learning Heupel’s warp-speed spread offense in just four months before the season opener will challenge Aguilar. His career completion rate won’t turn heads, but he led the Sun Belt Conference in passing yards last season.

Don’t ignore Heupel’s history. Hendon Hooker was an average quarterback for Virginia Tech. He developed into a star for Heupel after transferring to Tennessee. Heupel worked with Hooker for two seasons. Aguilar has one season of eligibility remaining – a season he’d planned to use at UCLA.

Nico Iamaleava, UCLA make for duplicitous duo

Coaches are quick to bemoan their lack of roster control. Players enjoy two transfer periods, during which they can freely move from school to school, but coaches contribute to this free agency carousel with their thirst for transfer solutions.

When Aguilar transferred to UCLA, he told ESPN it would “be amazing” to play for his home-state school and that he looked forward to the Bruins’ coaching staff developing him.

“Excited to see him take command of the team,” Foster said of Aguilar three weeks ago.

So much for that. Iamaleava and Foster are made for each other, a duplicitous duo.

But, hey, if nice guys finish last, where does that leave loyal guys? Not in Westwood.

The Vols stood on principle when backed into a corner. They rid themselves of a money-hungry quarterback but emerged with a damaged roster.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com. Follow him on X @btoppmeyer.

It’s going to be Dame Time for the first time during the 2025 NBA playoffs.

Milwaukee Bucks star Damian Lillard told reporters after morning shootaround he plans to return to the lineup Tuesday when the Bucks face the Indiana Pacers in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference first-round series. Lillard missed the final 14 games of the regular season and Milwaukee’s 117-98 Game 1 loss to Indiana after being diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis (a blood clot) in his calf last month.

If Lillard does play, it will be the first time since the Bucks acquired him via trade before the 2023-24 season that Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo will appear in a playoff game together. Antetokounmpo missed the postseason last year when the Bucks fell to the Pacers in a first-round series. Lillard is averaging 24.9 points and 7.1 assists per game during his second season in Milwaukee.

Here’s more information on Lillard’s potential return, his injury and what it could mean for the Bucks in their NBA playoff series against the Pacers moving forward:

Damian Lillard injury update

Lillard was officially upgraded to questionable for Game 2 by the Bucks on Monday before he told reporters in Indianapolis Tuesday morning that he is playing. It will be Lillard’s first game since March 18.

The impending return of the nine-time all-star isn’t a surprise at this point. The Bucks issued multiple positive progress reports leading into the playoffs, although they declined to disclose a specific timeline for a return prior to Lillard’s definitive message on Tuesday.

The Bucks announced on April 17 that Lillard had been granted medical clearance to resume full basketball activities. He nonetheless sat out Game 1 against the Pacers on Saturday. Lillard said Tuesday he will not be under a minutes restriction and his playing time will be a fluid decision.

“Honestly, it’s really just how I feel,’ he said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. ‘I’m going to be communicating to Doc how I’m feeling. It’s no real way to simulate being in an NBA game, let alone a playoff game, so I’m really just going in with intentions to e out there with the team and I’m going to give everything that I got. I’ll just build from there.”

Lillard’s injury was initially thought to be a calf strain. His treatment after being diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis included the use of blood thinners. Deep vein thrombosis occurs when a blood clot forms in one or more of the deep veins in the body, usually in the legs, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Damian Lillard vs. Tyrese Haliburton

Lillard engaged in a notable exchange of words with Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton while on the sideline during Game 1 and received a technical foul for his actions. He left the bench and confronted Haliburton during a timeout in play after the Bucks had challenged a call on the court.

Haliburton and Lillard have some history dating back to last season, just like these two teams. Haliburton imitated Lillard’s Dame Time watch celebration when the Bucks and Pacers met in the 2023 in-season tournament semifinals in Las Vegas.

Lillard and Haliburton are likely to be matched up often the rest of the series now that Lillard is ready to return. Antetokounmpo could use the help after he accounted for 36 points and 12 points in Saturday’s Game 1 loss, while the rest of the Bucks’ starters combined to score 14 points.

‘I don’t think it’s ever going to be perfect when you miss that much time and then you’re kind of back into an intense environment,’ Lillard said Tuesday, ‘but you gotta break yourself in somewhere and I just know that it’s not going to be a perfect time for it. I gotta go out and break myself in and I think that’s just better to do early in a series than later before it’s possibly too late.”

Pacers vs. Bucks: NBA playoffs schedule, time, TV channel, live streaming

The Eastern Conference first-round series between the Indiana Pacers and Milwaukee Bucks continues with Game 2 on Tuesday, April 22 in Indianapolis. Here’s the updated schedule for Pacers vs. Bucks. All times listed are Eastern.

Game 1: Pacers 117, Bucks 98
Game 2: Bucks at Pacers | Tuesday, April 22 | 7 p.m. | NBA TV
Game 3: Pacers at Bucks | Friday, April 25 | 8 p.m. | NBA TV, ESPNU, Fubo
Game 4: Pacers at Bucks | Sunday, April 27 | 9:30 p.m. | TNT, Sling TV
Game 5: Bucks at Pacers | Tuesday, April 29, TBD | TBD*
Game 6: Pacers at Bucks | Friday, May 2, TBD | TBD*
Game 7: Bucks at Pacers | Sunday, May 4, TBD | TBD*

*if necessary

The R&A would like to see U.S. President Donald Trump’s Turnberry course in Scotland return as host of The Open Championship but will first need to assess the feasibility of the venue, the governing body’s chief executive Mark Darbon said.

Turnberry, a seaside course in South Ayrshire, Scotland, has staged The Open four times – most recently in 2009 when American Stewart Cink won. Trump bought the property in 2014.

In 2021, after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, the R&A said it would not stage championships at Turnberry, but Darbon said the body’s main concerns over returning to the venue were logistical.

‘At Turnberry, there are definitely some logistical and commercial challenges that we face around the road, rail and accommodation infrastructure,’ Darbon told British media.

‘We’re doing some feasibility work around what it would look like to return to that venue and the investment that it would require.’

The 153rd edition of The Open, one of golf’s major championships, will take place from July 13-20 at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland, with the R&A announcing on Tuesday that a record attendance of 278,000 fans is expected at the event.

‘The last time we were there (Turnberry), I think we had just over 120,000 people,’ Darbon said.

‘We’ve just announced that this summer we’re going to welcome nearly 280,000 people here (Royal Portrush). A modern Open Championship is a large-scale event.

‘What we know for sure is the golf course is brilliant, so at some point we’d love to be back there.’

The absurdity would be hilarious if it weren’t so dangerously reckless.

College football is dying, everyone. And the sport’s leaders don’t really care.

Somewhere in Las Colinas, Texas, in a posh $600 a night five-star hotel, the muckety-mucks of the College Football Playoff are dining on five-star meals and bickering about playoff formats and automatic qualifiers and generating revenue — and getting nothing done. 

That’s four of these highfalutin’ meetings in the last four months, thank you. With nary a thing to show. 

Meanwhile, the college football world is crumbing around them.

A quarterback just held a football team hostage because none of those muckety-mucks had the foresight to make sure NIL deals had buyout clauses. Or had – and I know this is a foreign idea – a plan.

One plan. Any plan. 

One that doesn’t include the Tennessee quarterback failing to get a restructured NIL deal days before the spring transfer portal opened, and leaving to sign with UCLA. That doesn’t include the UCLA quarterback, who three months earlier transferred to Westwood from Appalachian State, leaving UCLA before playing a snap and signing with – wait for it – Tennessee.

All in a matter of a week. 

Back in Las Colinas, the 10 conference commissioners and the Notre Dame athletic director – at the behest of their university presidents (don’t ever forget that part) – will continue to play the charade of we’re for all of college football. For a better and equitable game.

When they all know damn well the SEC and Big Ten own the show. It’s their script, their three-card monte.   

They strut around the meetings with their big sticks and passive/aggressive attitudes, knowing they can whack anyone out of line with a simple execution of we’ll take our ball and go home. 

Translation: the television networks want us, not you — and we’ll start our own playoff if we don’t get our way. 

I’d be a lot happier if they were just honest about it. Here’s what we’re doing, take it or leave it. Would save a boatload of revenue in swanky resort fees ― and then they can begin the heavy lift of fixing the game.

Like slowing the bleeding by adding buyouts to NIL deals. Or adding a $200,000 transfer portal talent fee for Group of Five schools losing players to Power Four conference schools.

Group of Five schools spent time and money developing the players, they should get something in return. I mean, other than the Big Ten and SEC telling them to take it ― or you’ll get even less College Football Playoff money.

If a team is going to pay $1 million for the best tight end in the MAC, surely they’ll pay $1.2 million to cover the talent fee. And yes, the talent fee is part of the salary pool.

See how easy that is? See how that could, at the very least, give pause to a team contemplating a raid of Group of Five schools?

It’s so much easier when the villain and hero roles are clearly defined, and frankly, I don’t think the SEC and Big Ten give a flip about being the villains. But, buddy, can they put on a show like they do. 

We all know what the SEC and Big Ten want, and we all know they’re going to get it. The idea that the rest of college football has any power over them by holding out possible format changes for the final year (2025) of the old CFP contract is comical.

The Big Ten and SEC: we want a 14-team structure for the new CFP contract beginning in 2026, with four automatic qualifiers each. And we’re going to hold play-in games during championship weekend.

The rest of college football: if you do that, we’ll be really mad ― and, and, and, well, we won’t vote for the straight seeding you want for the 2025 CFP!

Heavens, not that.

But they’ll argue day after day over these inane topics, while the core of the sport is rotting. Because university presidents care about how it looks ― not how it works. 

How it looks like the NCAA (see: the 300-plus university presidents, not some singular boogeyman) has done everything it can to promote player empowerment, but did so at the cost of critical structure.

How it looks like the NCAA has given players the ability to move freely from school to school, just like coaches. But unlike coaches, there’s no contract buyout — or any tether whatsoever to keep players with a team. Certainly not loyalty. 

How it looks like the NCAA is creating opportunity for players by allowing upward mobility within the sport. You say upward mobility, I say the best players are playing for the schools that throw the most money at them — leaving a distinct class warfare between the haves who cherry pick players and have-nots who develop players and watch them walk without compensation.   

How it looks like the NCAA will share billions with the players, who haven’t earned a penny in media rights revenue for decades upon decades. But they’re only really sharing about 20 percent of athletic-related university revenue — which has many buckets of cash, not just media rights revenue.

How it looks like the NCAA is begging Congress for help with federal NIL reform, and throwing its arms up in despair when there’s nothing to show for it. When those same university presidents know the only group on the planet more dysfunctional than the NCAA is Congress. 

But sure, let’s argue for months – at posh resorts, no less – about circular arguments that will end when and where the SEC and Big Ten want them to end, anyway.

Let’s put on a dog and pony show so it looks like we know what in the world we’re doing, while the perfectly imperfect sport of our past is dying on the vine for all to see. Let’s avoid all hard truths, and incessantly blather on and on about formats and automatic qualifiers.

Meanwhile, Tennessee and UCLA just completed the first-ever effective college football player trade right under the collective noses of those who preach about a better and more equitable game.

But buddy, they sure can put on a show. 

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.

(This story was updated to fix a typo.)

Oh, he had plenty of advance billing, as a two-way prep superstar drafted second overall in 2017, one year before Shohei Ohtani ever graced a major league field. Yet even as he always possessed the sport’s most eye-opening currency – a 100-mph fastball – fate seemed to intercede.

Just one pro season into ditching shortstop and embracing pitching full time, he required Tommy John surgery, deleting him from competitive pitching for the 2019 and 2020 seasons.

And even as he got his professional sea legs, the command that comes with a polished product eluded him, resulting in too many home run balls as Ohtani and the indomitable Paul Skenes dominated the discourse.

Yet the non-linear path to fulfilling potential isn’t just for longshot prospects or slumping hitters. Sometimes the can’t-miss flamethrower, the bluest chip in the stack, needs a minute to get there.

“But you know, there’s beauty in that,” Greene tells USA TODAY Sports, “in being able to figure out ways to become a better player and a better person and be able to grow. To add to your development and process.

“I was able to do that. I was able to come back better in a lot of different ways. And it’s made me better as a person, too.”

And it’s clear the Greene that the Reds and baseball fans dreamed on has arrived.

In an era of unprecedented velocity, Greene checks pitching boxes that so many throwers cannot: He throws harder and longer than anyone and, since the beginning of last season, has dominated opposing hitters as much as any starting pitcher.

He’s held opposing batters to a league-low .179 batting average since 2024, with only Skenes (.541) and reigning AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal (.566) producing a lower OPS against than Greene’s .578. Greene leads the NL in WHIP this season, at 0.78, and joins an eye-popping quintet of All-Stars atop the leaderboard over the past two seasons: Logan Gilbert, Skenes, Skubal, Zack Wheeler and Greene.

Yes, he belongs in that conversation. But it’s also the manner in which he dominates that gives pause.

Keeping it 100

In Greene’s second start of the season at Texas, he began an 18 ⅔-inning scoreless streak that included several career-high water marks.

An April 7 start in San Francisco marked the first time in his career he pitched into the ninth inning, falling just one out shy of completing a four-hit shutout.

It wasn’t for lack of stuff: In the ninth inning, on his 88th pitch, Greene’s fastball was clocked at 100.7 mph. In his previous start, 56 of his 59 four-seam fastballs were at least 99 mph.

“A lot of guys can touch 100. Hunter throws 100,” says Reds closer Emilio Pagan. “There’s a lot of guys that can throw 98, 99 and hit 100 a couple times in a game. If you look up at Hunter, that game in San Fran, he was 101 in the ninth. That’s ridiculous. He’s kind of on another level with that.

“Obviously Skenes is a name that pops up. I feel like Hunter’s fastball is even more consistent than his. No disrespect to Skenes. But it’s fun to watch, man.”

Like any flamethrower, Greene’s ascendance truly began when he combined power with pitchability. He gave up a combined 53 home runs over 237 innings in his first two seasons, yet cut that number to 12 over 150 1/3 last year.

He’s taken another big step forward so far in 2025. His walk rate ranged from 9% to 9.6% his first three seasons but he’s cut that nearly in half, to 5.1%, and has a 35-6 strikeout-walk ratio through five starts.

Those numbers start with conviction.

“Being able to trust in yourself, believe in yourself, be aggressive in the zone,” says Greene. “And just play the odds. Play the odds of being able to come out on top in an at-bat and just believe in yourself.

“Being able to fill up the zone, you’ll find yourself in a deeper part of the game by getting ahead, getting quick outs.”

Indeed, Greene has completed at least seven innings in three of his five starts, coming off a 2024 in which he did so in seven of his 26 outings. Possessing a fastball ranked in the 99th percentile by Statcast is both a gift and an asset to be nurtured.

The lengthier starts add significant value for the Reds. For Greene, it remains a work in progress, a tool both to elicit chase from opposing hitters and use to either set up his burgeoning split-finger pitch or vice versa.

“It comes with time,” he says of harnessing heat. “It was a process for me. I’m still working on it. Some guys just throw it. But being able to know how to use it in certain counts, to certain hitters, and moving the ball around – I feel like that’s a process. Being able to figure that out and find that and use it for you .

“Taking mental notes. The biggest thing is being able to make adjustments.”

The process never ends. Greene’s scoreless streak did not last another pitch on Saturday, when he gave up consecutive homers to Baltimore’s Cedric Mullins and Gunnar Henderson to start the first inning.

He needed 77 pitches to complete three innings, and manager Terry Francona surmised that was enough for this day. Greene’s takeaway?

“That this game is full of failure,” he says. “I wouldn’t be in this position I’m in if I weren’t able to do that.”

‘A real joy to watch him’

That mentality distills the sense of security Greene possesses. He has financial security in the form of a six-year, $53 million deal signed when he was coming off a 5-13, 4.44 ERA campaign in his first full season.

With each dominant start, the pact looks a little more team-friendly, yet Greene will hit the free agent market no later than 30, plenty of time to approach the $40 million per annum pitchers of that age and pedigree have attained.

It’s just as likely he hasn’t neared his performance apex, either.

“Shoot, I hope we haven’t seen it yet,” says Francona. “With good young players, they get to a certain point where they start to get better. They learn there’s another gear. They’re not just trying to survive. They’re trying to thrive.

“I think he saw that he had another gear and came into shape ready to go. He’s got a split-finger now that I think is becoming a weapon. He holds his velocity because he’s in good shape.”

Longevity is important to Greene. He understands the significance that comes with being the preeminent Black pitcher in the game, and the symbolic heft of joining the Black Aces, the informal fraternity of pitchers who have won 20 games in a season.

In this era of bullpen specialization, wins are harder to come by, but Greene keeps that goal close at hand.

 “Being able to be in position to where it’s a goal of mine, and also obtainable, is special,” he says. “Hopefully I’m able to obtain that one day.”

That kind of sums up Greene’s station in life: He has an All-Star appearance and a long-term contract under his belt yet doesn’t turn 26 until August, young enough still to dream on the future.

It’s a sweet spot, to be sure – the gifted athlete now able to harness their gift, not at all worried about being the next big thing but embracing the now, with the promise of more very much in front of them.

“You could tell he was not only confident, but super-comfortable with who he is on the mound,” says Pagan, in his second season with the Reds. “That’s a really dangerous combination for an athlete, because he knows he’s good, but he’s also very aware of who he needs to be in order to be the best version of him on any given day.

“It’s been a real joy to watch him, man. Obviously, I knew about his natural ability when I signed here, but to see him grow as fast as he has since I’ve been here, into being a guy who was supposed to be really good and who showed flashes of it to where, when he takes the mound, I feel like he’s going to go nine every time. It just looks like that.

“I know he hasn’t done that yet. But they’re coming, for sure.”

The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news — fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.

Lane Kiffin once craved a statue. Now, the Ole Miss football coach quests for peace and emotional sobriety. But, can his career also reach new heights? ‘What’s to say you can’t do both,’ he says.
Lane Kiffin’s dad was his hero. Monte died last July. His legacy inspires Lane, but his passing left a void.
Lane Kiffin describes 2024 as a harsh year for him, but having so much of his family nearby helps him progress.

Kiffin has been thinking since we last spoke 12 days previously. Among the topics on his mind: rocking chairs. They’re a symbol for the evolution he sees in his life.

In Kiffin’s five years coaching Mississippi football, he’s changed his views on these quintessential furniture pieces that populate Southern verandas and living rooms. When Kiffin arrived in charming and cozy Oxford, he considered the idea of rocking in place maddening.

Like, why would someone sit and do nothing but rock back and forth?

“That seems miserable and a waste of time,” Kiffin remembers thinking, “sitting in a rocking chair and just having a conversation with somebody and watching people drive by.”

Kiffin, 49, spent much of his career speeding toward what’s next. Next opponent, next job, next big move.

Kiffin says his years coaching Ole Miss have changed him – that he needed this place more than it needed him, that he needed to slow down, recalibrate, find some peace and relish the moment.

He credits former girlfriend Sally Rychlak, with whom he enjoyed a four-year relationship that ended last fall, for teaching him the ways of Mississippi and how to be more caring and engaged with fans he encountered. The outpouring of remembrances after his dad, Monte, died last summer showed Kiffin that a man is remembered more for the lives he affects than his win-loss record.

Kiffin absorbs all of this as he continues the evolution of “becoming the higher version of myself.”

Kiffin is a former hotshot wunderkind, turned Tennessee renegade, turned fired coach in need of a Nick Saban life raft.  

At Ole Miss, he found sobriety, improved his diet and prioritized his health and wellness. He also attained a professional peak, notching 21 wins the past two seasons after he eschewed Auburn and stayed at Ole Miss.

Oh, and he got some rocking chairs, too. Two rockers reside on his Ole Miss office balcony. Kiffin and his son, Knox, rocked for a spell in the sunshine on a recent Friday.

“People slow down, and they have an appreciation for what they have, instead of always chasing,” Kiffin says. “That has really hit me of where you can find some peace. You can find some rhythm and some peace.”

Peace, though, does not always exist uninterrupted.

Lane Kiffin’s highs of 2023, followed by painful 2024

Kiffin counts 2023 “one of the best years in my life,” personally and professionally. He won a career-high 11 games, and Ole Miss attained its best season since 1962. His family life was going strong, and he was in “a wonderful relationship” with Rychlak.

As the calendar rolled to 2024, the hype for Ole Miss cooked to a boil after Kiffin meticulously assembled his best roster. He had a proven quarterback, skilled wide receivers and the best defense the Rebels had seen in many years.

Could Ole Miss qualify for the College Football Playoff? Contend for a national championship, even? All of it was on the table – until it wasn’t.

Throughout a painful year, Kiffin experienced personal loss, plus one too many football defeats to qualify for the playoff.

“This last (year),” Kiffin said, “was really maybe the worst.”

In July, Kiffin’s dad – his hero – died. In September, he and Rychlak decided to end their relationship. In November, Ole Miss suffered a third loss by one score, a result that revoked the Rebels’ playoff spot.

“They say things come in threes,” Kiffin mused.

By missing the playoff, Kiffin said, he felt like he “let down the whole city.”

I asked Kiffin how long it took him to get over last season. He corrected me.

“I wouldn’t say I fully am (over it),” Kiffin said.

Kiffin views life as a journey through various seasons. He describes 2024 as a harsh, bitter winter.

Seasons come and go. A temperate spring can follow a ruthless winter.

“I remind myself it’ll be OK,” Kiffin said. “It will pass.”

Once upon a time, Kiffin desired a statue. Something like the ones outside Bryant-Denny Stadium that honor Alabama’s five coaches who have won national championships.

“I wouldn’t have said that publicly,” Kiffin said, “but it was like, ‘I want to win enough where they build a statue of you. … That means you made it in life.’

“Now, I just want to be a really good neighbor, dad, brother, co-worker, boss. I look at life completely different.”

That begs the question, can this version of Kiffin – the dad who dances in TikTok videos with his daughters, the mentoring boss, the coach who plays pickleball with his players, the guy who tells himself to slow down and embrace the moment and sit in rocking chairs – accelerate his career to unattained heights?

“You know,” Kiffin said, “what’s to say you can’t do both?”

Anyway, he says there’s no turning back. He’s come too far.

Monte Kiffin’s legacy inspires Lane Kiffin

Kiffin tells good stories, and he’s got some doozies about his dad, but the words at first refused to come as he stood at the mic last July. Kiffin exhaled a deep breath, tapped his fingers on the lectern, cleared his throat, bowed his head and wiped each eye. After a minute, he collected himself, ready to speak about his hero.

Kiffin started his eulogy by rattling off the 16 moves Monte made, many with the family in tow, throughout a legendary career coaching in college and the NFL.

“I remember thinking, why are we moving again?” Kiffin said at his dad’s celebration of life. “Why do I have to change friends again, and my mom has to pack?”

After Monte died, Kiffin received calls, texts and letters from people tucked into every corner who wanted to share stories about his dad’s positive effect on their life. He heard from a guy who met his dad at a gas station. Monte chatted with the fella like he’d known him for years. One of Kiffin’s former Little League teammates – Monte coached the team – wrote that Monte was “a special kind of person” who “brought out the best of people,” including the Little League player who struggled to put bat to ball.

Kiffin arrived at a realization.

“We moved,” Kiffin said at the celebration of life, “so that this man could impact people not in one town or one city, but 16 different ones.”

Kiffin subscribes to the belief that you must choose between the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Monte preached and practiced discipline. As part of his routine, he’d buy a gas station doughnut, take one bite, and throw the rest away – his way of showing discipline, instead of experiencing the caloric regret of eating the full doughnut.

Kiffin lost his dad and a valued co-worker when Monte died. In 11 of Kiffin’s first 12 seasons as a head coach, his dad worked as either an assistant coach, or, later, in an off-field analyst or player personnel role.

“All of a sudden, (before the 2024) season, he’s just gone,” Kiffin said, “and there’s his office that I walk by.”

That office remains filled with Monte’s things.

Monte Kiffin saw son attain ‘emotional sobriety’

As Texas coach Steve Sarkisian put it, Monte “cared for all of those that nobody cared about.”

“That was him,” Kiffin agrees.

Is Kiffin that man? Kiffin is smart and witty and sarcastic. In a profession filled with boring people, he’s a breath of something interesting. But, he’d struggle in a Mr. Congeniality contest. He can be aloof.

Kiffin admits he can’t be his dad, but, he can aspire to be the best version of himself – and he’s grateful his dad lived long enough to see him succeed in those aspirations and achieve “emotional sobriety,” as Kiffin puts it.

“If I wouldn’t have changed, he wouldn’t have seen that higher version of myself,” Kiffin said. “He would have seen me doing well (as a coach), but not being the best that I could be, the best version, and he would say that often. He would say, … ‘I’m so proud of you.’”

Monte, his son says, would appreciate seeing the family together and thriving.

Kiffin’s brother, Chris, is a defensive analyst on his staff. Their backyards butt against each other, creating a space for cousins to play. Landry, Kiffin’s oldest daughter, is an Ole Miss sophomore. Kiffin credits Landry’s urging him to stay at Ole Miss as a reason why he’s coaching the Rebels and not Auburn. Middle child Presley will play volleyball for Southern California. Kiffin’s son, Knox, lived with his mom, Layla, in California, but Knox and Layla will move to Oxford this summer.

Kiffin and Layla were once college football’s “it” couple. They divorced in 2016. Tabloids have speculated about Kiffin and Layla possibly being back together. Kiffin shares these tabloid articles on social media, but, when asked about this subject, Kiffin declines to elaborate. He’ll say plenty, though, about his family life at Ole Miss.

“That helps me, that they’re here, that my family is here now,” Kiffin said, “and then Chris being here with his four kids. That helps a lot.”

Lane Kiffin on growing his Ole Miss appreciation

If you fed Kiffin truth serum several years ago, he probably wouldn’t have spoken so fondly about being at Ole Miss. He’d coached in the NFL and at Tennessee. He’d worked for Saban. He’d lived on each coast. Mississippi stood in contrast.

“At first I was like, man, everybody is slow,” Kiffin said. “It’s like, can we just get through this conversation? Get to the point? And, I was very frustrated.”

Rychlak helped Kiffin see the light. Maybe, the problem wasn’t them.

“She said, ‘You’re looking at this all wrong.’ Why don’t you look at this as, ‘That’s a little thing for you, and a big thing for them when you stop and take some time with them?’” Kiffin said.

She told him, is it so bad to coach where fans care more about college football than they do in Los Angeles or Boca Raton? Also, who says big cities are right about the pace at which life should operate?

The penny dropped for Kiffin.

“They are slowing down,” Kiffin said, “because they are present in their relationships … versus everybody going so fast, moving around.”

Kiffin’s success is undeniable. He’s Mississippi’s best coach since Johnny Vaught. But, has he hit his ceiling there?

“I would say: Maybe,” Kiffin said.

If this answer surprises you, consider the source. Kiffin prides himself in avoiding coach-speak. He’s not saying he’s at his ceiling. He’s not saying he’s not. He’s saying he doesn’t know.

The Rebels went 4-0 in one-score games in 2023. Last year, they lost one-score games to LSU, Kentucky and Florida by 13 combined points.

Kiffin’s latest roster seems built for another winning season, but the talent doesn’t appear to match what he had last season. Maybe.    

Now, Kiffin wants to tell me the parable of the Chinese farmer. The gist is this: The farmer keeps answering “maybe” when told about a series of circumstances that most people would judge to be definitively good or bad. The moral of the story is to reserve judgment on whether something is good or bad. Time will tell. Let it play out.

That parable would be well told from a rocking chair, while the storyteller takes his time with the tale and enjoys some peace.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com. Follow him on X @btoppmeyer.