College football Week 3 predictions: Best bets, picks against the spread for 15 featured games

Lane Kiffin’s return to Ole Miss is just the latest chapter of a career defined by drama. He is the coach who was terminated with cause by the NFL’s Raiders, bolted from Tennessee after one season, was fired by USC at the airport in the middle of the night and was booted by Nick Saban before Alabama’s national title game. Kiffin has spent much of his adult life wearing black hats, inviting vitriol from all corners of college football by cosplaying as a 14-year-old social-media troll. His much-anticipated trip back to Ole Miss — where he spent the previous six seasons, then left for a rival school before the playoff, and attempted to steal the core of the best Rebels team in 60 years — is nothing new, coming five years after fans in Knoxville hurled a golf ball, water bottles and other items at him. He is prepared for what will happen in Oxford on Saturday. But the same cannot be said for his high-priced roster with sky-high expectations, which will arrive to find an increased police presence, the most hostile 64,000 fans imaginable and a top 10 opponent. Ole Miss has won 13 straight home games, the third-longest active streak in the nation.They are led by a head coach (Pete Golding) who spent the past three years as Kiffin’s defensive coordinator.

And they have perhaps the best quarterback in the nation (Trinidad Chambliss), who Kiffin elevated from Division II but couldn’t convince to join him in Baton Rouge, forcing the coach to settle for Sam Leavitt, the owner of four interceptions in his first two games with the Tigers. By leaving for a higher ceiling, Kiffin made it easier to get knocked to the ground.Ole Miss (+3) may go decades before playing another game that matters more. I may be naive, but I have reason to believe the Orange can avoid the three interceptions and 15 penalties that resulted in a three-point loss to Cal despite outgaining the Bears by nearly 200 yards.

I also believe this game would be 80 percent more interesting if ...