Amid Kiffin buzz, Ole Miss stays 'focused on the game plan' - ESPN

OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss running back Kewan Lacy listened intently as he was asked about how he's gotten along with Lane Kiffin since the former Rebels coach left for LSU. He reflected silently for a moment, shrugged his shoulders and nonchalantly said, «I really don't have a relationship with him.»

Lacy, the featured running back for the Rebels, said he has maintained contact with several former Ole Miss assistant coaches and teammates who followed Kiffin to LSU.

But Lacy «won't really talk to them until after the season,» he said Tuesday. «I just want to be focused on the game plan and the game.»

The on-field storylines surrounding Saturday night's tilt between the No. 8 Rebels and No. 7 Tigers have been overshadowed by Kiffin's return to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium for the first time since he accepted the LSU head coaching job Nov. 30 — a week before the Mississippi program he'd built during the previous five years received its first bid to the College Football Playoff.

Defensive coordinator Pete Golding was tapped to replace Kiffin and led Ole Miss to a pair of CFP wins, and very nearly a third in the national semifinals against Miami at the Fiesta Bowl.

Kiffin's departure «was crazy,» defensive tackle Will Echoles said. «I was planning on deer hunting in the woods that morning.… A team meeting got called to announce [Golding] as the head coach.

»It didn't really hit me until the next day when I went to the weight room and [strength] coach [Nick] Savage wasn't there. That's when I realized there were coaches that weren't there anymore."

Echoles acknowledged there was pressure for many Ole Miss players to follow Kiffin to LSU, but said, «Nah. Not me. I told my mom that I liked it here and this is where I was supposed to