Continuity amid chaos: How Ole Miss thrived after Lane Kiffin's exit, staff turmoil to reach CFP semifinals

Ole Miss lost its head coach and splintered the staff while winning two playoff games. Now the Rebels are one win from the national title game.

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona -- The busiest coaching staff in college football is shorthanded and tired, frustrated and confused. But no one at Ole Miss is complaining.  

The Rebels play Miami in the Fiesta Bowl on Thursday with a spot in the national championship game on the line. It's easily the biggest moment in the program's history, and yet another chapter from the most chaotic 40 days the school has ever endured.

The first domino fell more than a month ago, when Lane Kiffin went turncoat and bolted for LSU on the eve of the College Football Playoff, taking six assistants with him. Signing day came and went. Some LSU-bound assistants split time between the Tigers and Rebels, hopping private flights between Oxford and Baton Rouge. The transfer portal opened. Ole Miss kept winning -- twice -- in the playoff.

Hectic? Absolutely.

Take it from veteran coach Joe Judge, a former NFL head coach and assistant for the New England Patriots, now tasked with overseeing the Rebels' offensive operations.

"My nextdoor neighbor was Aaron Hernandez," Judge deadpanned Tuesday. "I know this is still more chaotic."

Ole Miss' situation obviously isn't as serious as the night helicopters circled Judge's Massachusetts neighborhood searching for Hernandez, the former New England tight end who was wanted and convicted for murder. But Judge's point was clear: the constant attention surrounding Kiffin's exit has been little more than background noise -- perceived by outsiders as a distraction, but treated internally as anything but.

And yet Ole Miss arrives in Arizona with just one loss, a regular-season defeat it avenged with a 39-34 upset of Georgia in the quarterfinals last week.

Newly elevated coach Pete Golding, now 2-0 in the CFP, bristles at the notion that Kiffin's absence -- along with four assistants -- has left the Rebels compromised. Only LSU-bound offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. and running backs coach Kevin Smith remain with the team this week, but Ole Miss is hardly short on bodies.

Thirteen assistants attended an offensive meeting Tuesday. Nine have been with the team all season. Even Frank Wilson, the former LSU interim coach hired to become Ole Miss' next running backs coach, was in the room.

Golding made it clear Wednesday that he's tired of the narrative.

"There's been too much invested in that and it's been aligned correctly that one person is not going to impact something so drastically," Golding said Wednesday. "If it is, it's probably not built right. If one coach in any sport can determine the outcome, he probably doesn't have a very good staff. If one player can determine the outcome, we probably didn't recruit and create the right depth. Or we didn't prepare them to be ready for his opportunity. It's a team game. There's so many people that go into it.

"The timing of when it happened, in my opinion, couldn't happen at a better time for the players because everything was already in place. Everything was on the track. It's headed the right direction. We got really good players. There's already a culture created. They knew the expectation. The only thing that was different is who is running them out of the tunnel. And to be honest with you, I don't think the players give a damn who runs them out of the tunnel."

Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss' unbelievable rise from Division II backup to College Football Playoff hero

Shehan Jeyarajah

Still, the grind hasn't stopped.

Weis Jr. left Oxford after practice Monday to host LSU recruits alongside Kiffin in Baton Rouge, returned to Ole Miss late that night, then boarded the team plane Tuesday for Phoenix. By Tuesday afternoon, Weis, Judge and the Rebels' quarterbacks were in a Scottsdale hotel meeting room laughing about the absurdity of it all.

"We think we're the only people that can handle what's going on," quarterback Trinidad Chambliss said. "I don't think this has ever happened in college football where part of your coaching staff is kinda with another team."

Weis' split-screen existence -- recruiting for LSU while preparing Ole Miss for the playoff -- has demanded creativity and constant communication.

"So between scripting on the plane and having phone calls and talking about notes from practice and making corrections through FaceTime, it's been a different process for all of us, but we all work together very well," Judge said. "And Charlie's done a terrific job through his entire process. I can't say enough about Charlie in terms of who he is as a person, what he's doing as a coach.

"This is a challenge many people haven't had to have. Now, luckily for him, his father had this challenge, right?"

Indeed, like father, like son.

Charlie Weis Jr.'s father famously split time between the New England Patriots and Notre Dame for seven weeks in late 2004 after being hired as the Irish's head coach, all while coordinating an offense that went on to win a Super Bowl.

Ole Miss wouldn't mind a repeat in the family lineage.

Weis Jr.'s offense has averaged 40 points in two CFP games, and Chambliss threw for a season-high 362 yards against Georgia last week. From the outside, the chaos doesn't seem to be slowing anything down, a point not lost on Miami offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson.

"The times in my life I've been the most chaotic, it's galvanized people together," he said. "And I think it works opposite of what normal people think it works. It gives you a theme, it gives you a reason to bond together and it gives you a message of, 'Hey, everybody's against our ass.' It works completely the opposite of the mental thing people think it does. The chaos, a lot of times, is good, because then you can't see the distractions that are really the ones that hurt you, like the ones right in front of your face."

Thursday night inside State Farm Stadium, none of the noise will matter. Ole Miss must slow Miami's nation-leading pass rush, score points and contain the Hurricanes' playmakers like quarterback Carson Beck, freshman All-American receiver Malachi Toney and punishing running back Mark Fletcher Jr.

"To be able to navigate all this during this time and still have the type of success that (Golding) is having, man, it's off the charts. It's awesome," said Miami coach Mario Cristobal.

Asked if he had a message for Kiffin or anyone doubting the Rebels, Golding didn't hesitate: he focused on the players. After all, the system has long been in place, and now it's up to the players to follow their routine. 

"They care about their plan," he said. "They care about getting held accountable and how they're going to prepare. And they care about people who care about them. That's been the message our players have created. I don't have s*** to say to anybody else."