Both Lane Kiffin and Kirby Smart built their head coaching foundations under Nick Saban, and it made them alike in several aspects.
While it is already reflected in some parts of their coaching styles, it is now also reflected in how they deal with extreme external noise.
The coaching carousel rumors that surround Kiffin are some of the most intense ones college football has witnessed in the past few years.
Dealing with all this, while playing for your playoff spot, against a team that you are rumored to be the next head coach of, sounds like a can of worms no head coach wants to open.
All Kirby Smart could advise Kiffin in his precarious situation was to simply focus on their next game, tuning out the unnecessary talks.
“Be where your feet are, which I think he is," Smart said on The Paul Finebaum Show.
"He’s got a really good team, and they got a chance to do something really special. And it’s so hard. As coaches, everybody talks about how hard it is to win now and you don’t know when you’re going to have that opportunity again."
It was exactly in a game like this last season against Florida where Ole Miss stumbled their chances at college football playoff.
“He’s sitting in a really good position right now to have a playoff run and have a playoff team. And I think he’s worried about that,” Smart added.
Now, about how Smart's advice reflects in Kiffin. The Ole Miss head coach has already been practicing and preaching the same formula whenever asked about the rumors.
"I'm just focused on keeping our home winning streak going. And, like I told Landry last week, if you're a junior here, you've only seen one home loss; if you're a fifth-year senior, you've seen three in five years. That's pretty cool—we'd love to finish the season strong at home," Kiffin said in his press conference.
Whether Kiffin goes to Florida or not becomes secondary this Saturday; whether they can defeat the Gators to break their decade-long winning streak over the Rebels, while securing a CFP berth, is the central focus this weekend.