Week 3 preview: A revenge game in Oxford, Florida State's bleak future and more - ESPN

Breakups are hard.

There's no right way to tell someone you're moving on, to put a hard stop on a thing that, at some point, felt like it had a promising future. Feelings get hurt, tempers flair, no one comes out the other side looking good. As Tom Cruise rightly noted in the cinematic masterpiece «Cocktail,» everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn't end.

And, of course, no one does breakups as badly as Lane Kiffin.

Tennessee fans still keep a stash of golf balls and plastic mustard bottles at the ready, just in case there's a Kiffin sighting within 30 miles of Knoxville.

Somewhere, there's a Kiffin-related support group that meets on an airport tarmac and shares motivational messages on an overhead projector.

Now, Ole Miss is the latest to sit alone in a darkened room listening to Journey's «Faithfully» on repeat, wondering how it all went so wrong.

As with all breakups, the losing side goes through the typical stages of grief — anger, denial, bargaining, the Sugar Bowl — before arriving at acceptance. That's the goal at Ole Miss now, with Pete Golding at the helm and the No. 8 ranking next to its name. It's OK. The Rebels have moved on. They're ready for a bright new future, stronger for the experience.

Except for this week.

«To get through Week 3, to get that game behind us,» Ole Miss AD Keith Carter said, «the hope is it can put some closure on all that saga, all that drama.»

Ah, yes, the drama.

Nothing stymies a breakup recovery quite like bumping into your ex at a party, there with a new partner, who's also probably a doctor or a lawyer or Trey'Dez Green. Then all the emotional maturity developed in the months since the breakup goes out the window, and all that's left is a game of one-upmanship to prove who's