Hot dog eating star Joey Chestnut to highlight Grove Bowl Games

OXFORD — It’s been a minute since Lane Kiffin last had a hot dog.

The Ole Miss coach gave up red meat years ago and is strict with his diet.

However, Kiffin admitted he might make an exception Saturday when Joey Chestnut makes an appearance at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium for the Rebels’ inaugural Grove Bowl Games.

Kiffin invited Chestnut via Direct Message on social media, presumably through X or Instagram, and the top-ranked eater in Major League Eating accepted. Chestnut, 40, won his 16th Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest this past July 4. He ate 76 hot dogs in the 2021 competition, a record that stands today. Chestnut also owns a myriad of other food-eating records, including 182 chicken wings in 30 minutes, 103 Krystal burgers in eight minutes, 121 Twinkies in six minutes and 5.9 pounds of funnel cake in 10 minutes.

“I think this guy, you talk about the goat of goats,” Kiffin said. “He took the one year off and I want to say it’s 17 years otherwise to be the world champ at something. That’s pretty cool to have him around.”

Kiffin said when he does have a hot dog, he likes ketchup, mustard and pickles as condiments.

“Maybe I’ll have one,” Kiffin said. “Relapse.”

Kiffin said the hot dog eating contest Saturday will be part of the inaugural Grove Bowl Games. The format, which Kiffin described as “Pro Bowl-plus,” will include seven-on-seven flag football, an obstacle course, a slam dunk competition, some games involving fraternities and sororities on campus and more.

“It should be exciting for people to watch and come see,” Kiffin said.

Kiffin said players drafted teams for Saturday’s event and listened to some of the ideas they had for the day.

“They were really excited about it,” Kiffin said. “It’ll be fun but competitive, too. There will be a scoring system. If you advance in the dunk competition, you get a certain number of points.”

To his point, players are already speculating on who might win what competition. Transfer portal offensive lineman Nate Kalepo said Tuesday he’s betting on another transfer offensive lineman, Diego Pounds, to contend for the hot dog eating crown.

“That’s a big boy,” Kalepo said, laughing, adding he believed Pounds could put away at least 17 hot dogs on Saturday.

Kiffin and the Rebels began spring several weeks ago and have followed more of a professional model. In the NFL, teams have mini-camps with little contact in the spring before going through a grueling preseason camp to prepare for the season.

“I think if you think outside of the box and the traditional way of doing things, which it’s well known we do, and I think over time, the spring game really isn’t of much value,” Kiffin said. “Very rarely do they run more than a few types of plays and schemes. So I don’t know that traditional spring game really gets you very much from an evaluation standpoint. It was just kind of done because it used to be done that way. We’ll see what this is like.”