Jaxson Dart’s dad reveals Lane Kiffin’s private answer to Giants coaching rumors

Don’t count on an Ole Miss reunion in East Rutherford.

With rumors swirling about who will be coaching Jaxson Dart and the Giants next season with coach Brian Daboll on the hot seat, some have speculated whether his college coach, Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin, could return to the NFL.

But it seems Kiffin prefers the southern climate.

“As we were texting on our Kiffin-Dart family text thread, because I think Boomer Esiason had said something in the media today that maybe they should throw out a potential coaching (offer) to Kiffin, and he just sent it over with a smirk and just said, ‘It’s too cold in New York for me.’ It’s just kind of funny,” Jaxson’s father, Brandon, told the “Bleav in Ole Miss” podcast.

“But we have our weekly interactions with him and his family, and Jaxson holds high regard. I think Kiffin is one of his most trusted allies, and I think he uses him for advice in a lot of different ways, so there’s constant communication between them, even today, and there’s a lot of that between our families. I don’t think we could have asked for a more special coach relationship between our family and our son, so we’re very, very grateful for coach Kiff.”

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With the Giants (2-7) headed to another lost season and a third straight losing campaign in four years, it’s certainly possible that Daboll is coaching his final games with the franchise.

Speculation has already started on who could potentially replace Daboll, and Esiason mentioned Monday after a 34-24 home loss to the 49ers the day prior that Kiffin could make sense.

However, Esiason said he does not see a pairing happen.

The idea of Kiffin, in theory, is appealing since the Giants would be pairing their young quarterback with a coach he and his family think highly of and who helped him become the talent he is today.

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Dart transferred to Ole Miss for the 2022 season and played under Kiffin for three years, throwing 72 touchdowns to 22 interceptions.

He threw for 4,729 yards and 29 touchdowns while completing 69.3 percent of his passes in his senior season, which helped land him with the Giants with the 25th pick in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft.

“First and foremost, (Kiffin is) a great mentor for Jaxson,” Brandon said. “That relationship was built from kind of bottom up. He didn’t make things easy for Jaxson at first, and I think he kinda wanted to see what he was all about. It took at least probably up to 18 months to really forge the relationship to where it is today.”

Beyond Kiffin’s collegiate success, another appealing factor is that he has NFL experience — even if his first NFL stint bombed.

The Raiders took a gamble on the then-31-year-old Kiffin, and it did not work out, with the coach posting a 5-15 record across the 2007 and 2008 seasons, before being fired early in his second campaign.

He didn’t let that failure derail his career, instead pivoting back to collegiate coaching and finding a home in Oxford, Miss.

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Kiffin has guided the program to a 52-19 mark over six seasons, including this year’s 8-1 start that has the program ranked sixth in the nation.

It seems, though, that Kiffin is content with coaching in college for now, and there are certainly some high-profile coaching jobs available in Florida, LSU and Penn State, among others, should he want to move.

All of this speculation, though, is just that until the Giants make the call on whether they want to stick with Daboll or think it’s time for a new voice.

The Giants brought in Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen at the same time, but The Post reported that the two are not a package deal.

The duo has posted a 20-39-1 record together, including a miserable 11-32-1 mark over the last three seasons, which has inspired little reason for optimism outside of Dart.

The quarterback appears to be the future of the team, and any and all decisions about the franchise’s stability likely will have him — and perhaps even his former coaches — at the forefront.