Decisions, decisions

 Look, I don't know what Lane Kiffin's going to do, down there in magnolia country. I don't much care, either, except for the fact he's a not-so-shining example of what big-boy college athletics have become.

A football coach holding an entire university -- Ole Miss -- hostage? A university that produced William Faulkner holding its breath because, again, a football coach can't make up his mind?

If that doesn't tell you how the athletics tail now wags the academic dog, I don't know what else does. It's the American university as Walmart -- a spreadsheet-driven corporate entity whose function is merely to serve as branding for its football or basketball teams.

And so here's Lane Kiffin, who's taken Ole Miss football to heights it hasn't glimpsed in 60-plus years, being aggressively pursued by another company. And not just another company, but one that's a direct competitor. It's like Macy's raiding Gimbel's for its director of sales.

The direct competitor, of course, is LSU, whose delusions of grandeur have birthed a willingness to fling outlandish amounts of money at every hot property that comes down the pike. And Lane Kiffin is the hottest right now, having coached Ole Miss to an 11-1 record and a surefire spot in the College Football Playoff.

Even in Oxford, everyone assumes he's headed one state over to one of Ole Miss' ancient SEC rivals. But he dithers. He deflects. And the suspicion -- probably more than a suspicion -- is that he's trying work out a deal where he can collect LSU's big bucks but still coach Ole Miss in the CFP.

In other words, he wants the ranch and the beach house. It's the Trumpian ethos in full flower, where greed is not only good but practically an imperative for every right-thinking American.

And if I'm the Ole Miss powers-that-be, I push back on that.

I tell Lane Kiffin if he's going to LSU, then get packin' and quit jacking us around.

I tell him there's only two ways we'll let him coach our football team in the CFP: No way, and no (bad word that starts with "F") way.

The powers-that-be probably wouldn't add that Kiffin is a yellow-dog dirtbag, because he did lift Ole Miss to unimagined heights. But, well, he is a yellow-dog dirtbag.

Ole Miss, remember, hired Kiffin at a time when a lot of big-money schools were off him because of his reputation as an entitled me-first snot. Ole Miss took him in, anyway. Gave him a home. Gave him a second chance, and the wherewithal to make it work.

It was an act of charity that enabled Kiffin to resuscitate his career and put him a position to be wooed  by ... well, by LSU. And he'll repay that act of charity, most people now think, by taking LSU's money and running.

Even though LSU is three rings of fun right now, having fired both Brian Kelly and athletic director Scott Woodward because Louisiana's dopey governor couldn't keep his mouth shut. Even though Governor Dopey very publicly -- and very stupidly --  said Woodward was an idiot to give Kelly that enormous buyout, and said there's no way LSU would ever offer such a buyout again.

Just the sort of sales pitch you want to put out there when you're shopping for a new coach. Yeah, boy.

But Kiffin's apparently OK with it -- even though if he stayed at the school to whom by all rights he owes his loyalty, he'd hardly be living in a cardboard box under the overpass.

A product of his times, Lane Kiffin. And that's no compliment.