Breakups are hard. No one does them as badly as Lane Kiffin. Tennessee fans still keep golf balls and mustard bottles ready. Now Ole Miss is the latest to sit alone listening to Journey's "Faithfully," wondering how it all went wrong. The losing side goes through stages of grief before acceptance. That's the goal at Ole Miss now, with Pete Golding at the helm and the No. 8 ranking. The Rebels have moved on. 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." Nothing stymies recovery like bumping into your ex at a party. Saturday's LSU-Ole Miss showdown in Oxford is going to be saltier than the oysters at Snackbar. The game has been hyped since Kiffin boarded that plane to Baton Rouge.

Ole Miss seems poised. Trinidad Chambliss led the Rebels past Louisville in the opener, ensuring a top-10 matchup for Kiffin's return. Ole Miss was within a breath of the national championship game last season, winning two playoff games without its former coach. Had Kiffin not abandoned ship, perhaps the Rebels would've beaten Miami in the Fiesta Bowl and toppled Indiana in the title game.

Kiffin didn't just spurn Ole Miss. He had a likely playoff team, was getting paid, had a coaching staff that wanted to stick together. In LSU, Kiffin saw a fast track to the type of legacy held by Pete Carroll and Nick Saban. Both urged him to take the job. In Ole Miss, Kiffin saw a place that had reached its apex.