USC Names Lane Kiffin Head Coach

After days of speculation about who would be the new USC coach, athletic director Mike Garrett has pulled out the surprise candidate to beat all.

Garrett and Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin reached an agreement in principle Tuesday for the brash young coach to replace Pete Carroll, the school confirmed on its Web site. Kiffin, who was an assistant coach under Carroll from 2001-06, takes over the USC Trojans after just one tumultuous season leading the Vols. Tennessee was 7-5 last season.

Kiffin also spent just over a season as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders before Al Davis famously ousted him.

"This was not an easy decision," Kiffin said Tuesday night, reading a brief statement on Tennessee's campus. "This is something that happens very quick. We've been here 14 months, and the support has been unbelievable here. I really believe the only place I would have left here to go was ... Southern California."

Kiffin, 34, now assumes control of a USC squad that appears headed for NCAA trouble, which may or may not have convinced Carroll to return suddenly to the NFL to coach the Seattle Seahawks. His hire also stems the tide with several big-name verbal commits threatening to jump ship with National Signing Day just three weeks away.

"We are really excited to welcome Lane Kiffin back to USC," athletic director Mike Garrett said in a statement. "I was able to watch him closely when he was an assistant with us and what I saw was a bright, creative young coach who I thought would make an excellent head coach here if the opportunity ever arose. I'm confident he and his staff will keep USC football performing at the high level that we expect.

Since news broke over the weekend that Carroll was leaving for Seattle, several high-profile names surfaced in the Trojans' search. But Oregon State's Mike Riley chose to renew his contract with the Beavers, Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher showed no public interest, while Jacksonville Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio, a former Trojan, committed to staying with the NFL team on Tuesday.

Joining Kiffin so far will be his father and longtime defensive guru Monte Kiffin, who will come aboard as the defensive coordinator as he was at Tennessee. Top recruiter Ed Orgeron also heads back to USC, where he is expected to be named assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator. Norm Chow, who spent this past season as offensive coordinator at rival UCLA, has also been tapped to reprise his the offensive coordinator role he held at USC from 2001-04 when Kiffin was his assistant coach.

Both Monte Kiffin and Oregeron spent last season with Lane Kiffin at Tennessee.

This comes as a huge blow to Tennessee, which supported Kiffin in several missteps during his season as a first-year college head coach. But this is something of a coup for a USC program that seemed on the verge of another messy search. Nine years ago, several candidates turned down the job before Carroll stepped in.

Garrett said he was excited to bring in a coach with both familiarity of the Trojan program and experience outside it.

"I can't tell you how delighted we are to have Ed Orgeron back on staff and to have Monte Kiffin join us. They are some of the preeminent coaches in the game."
-- USC AD
Mike Garrett "Lane brings a lot to the table," Garrett said, "He has a coaching background both in the pros and in the best collegiate conferences. He has a great command of the X's and O's. He is familiar with the Trojan landscape and will be a great representative of our university. He keeps the game fun. And, very importantly, he has proven to be one of the finest recruiters anywhere.

"Lane has surrounded himself with others of similar talent," Garrett continued. "I can't tell you how delighted we are to have Ed Orgeron back on staff and to have Monte Kiffin join us. They are some of the preeminent coaches in the game. Ed did a marvelous job during his previous time at USC and we all know that Monte is a defensive guru. I know Lane will fill out his staff with other outstanding assistants like them, ones who Trojan players and fans will really like."

The buyout for Kiffin is $800,000 payable in installments over 36 months, which is a bargain for a such a high-profile program as Tennessee. But this is just one more misstep in a long list of them since Kiffin was named to replace Phil Fulmer in the winter of 2008.

Kiffin almost immediately got on the wrong side of the other SEC coaches when he incorrectly accused Florida's Urban Meyer of tampering with committed recruits. He was reprimanded by the SEC and had to apologize to Meyer. The young coach exchanged barbs with South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, LSU's Les Miles and Alabama coach Nick Saban and Meyer in his first season.

Kiffin was later found to have committed some minor NCAA violations himself after first giving ESPN access while he met with recruits and then later for mentioning unsigned recruit Bryce Brown during his radio show.

Kiffin, however, takes over a USC program that could be in far worse trouble as the NCAA continues to probe allegations of illegal payments and benefits to former Heisman Trophy winning running back Reggie Bush and his family during his time at USC.

Most believe the potential fallout is why Carroll decided to suddenly leave after such a successful run with the Trojans. All the same, USC is still one of the prime jobs not just in the PAC-10 but across the country because of the fertile recruiting base it's surrounded by.


Tennessee, meanwhile, must scramble to find a replace for Kiffin. The early names include: Duke coach David Cutcliffe, who was a former offensive coordinator under Fulmer, University of Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp and former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach.