Lane Kiffin
Lane Monte Kiffin is an American football coach who is the head football coach at Louisiana State University. He served as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders from 2007 to 2008, the University of Tennessee in 2009, USC from 2010 to 2013, Florida Atlantic from 2017 to 2019, and Ole Miss from 2020 to 2025.
He was the youngest head coach in modern NFL history at the time when he joined the Raiders, and, for a time, was the youngest head coach of a power conference team in college football when he was at Tennessee and USC. Kiffin later served as the offensive coordinator at the University of Alabama from 2014 until 2016, when he was hired to be the head coach at Florida Atlantic, a position he held until 2019, when he became the head coach at Ole Miss. In 2025, as his team was preparing for the playoffs, Kiffin left to become the head coach at LSU.
Playing career
Kiffin is the son of longtime NFL defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin. He graduated from Bloomington Jefferson High School in Minnesota in 1994, and committed to Fresno State University to play college football. He played backup quarterback for the Bulldogs, giving up his senior season to become a Student Assistant Coach for position coach Jeff Tedford. According to teammate David Carr, Monte Kiffin forbade his son from quitting the team because of lack of playing time, so Lane became a coach instead. Kiffin graduated from Fresno State in 1998.Coaching career
Early positions
Kiffin worked as a graduate assistant for one year at Colorado State University. In 1999, while he was working with the offensive line, the Rams played in the Liberty Bowl. Kiffin secured a job with the Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL as a quality control assistant for one year. He was then hired by head coach Pete Carroll as a tight ends coach at USC.USC Trojans assistant coach
Kiffin began working with the University of Southern California staff during the 2001 season and became the wide receivers coach prior to the 2002 season. For the 2004 season, he added the duties of passing game coordinator, and he was promoted to offensive coordinator along with Steve Sarkisian who returned as USC's assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach for the 2005 season after Norm Chow left USC for the same position with the NFL's Tennessee Titans. In addition to his duties as offensive coordinator, Kiffin took the reins as recruiting coordinator that year. Along with these duties, Kiffin continued as the wide receivers coach. Under Kiffin and Sarkisian, the 2005 USC offense produced numerous school records, averaging 49.1 points and 579 yards per game and becoming the first in NCAA history to have a 3,000 yard passer, two 1,000 yard rushers, and a 1,000 yard receiver. Steve Smith fell a few yards short of also surpassing 1,000 yards in receiving. In Kiffin's three years as recruiting coordinator at USC, the Trojans had the top ranked recruiting class in college football every year. In 2006, the Trojans finished first in the Pac-10 in passing efficiency by averaging 142.8 passer rating, produced two, 1,000-yard receivers – Dwayne Jarrett and Steve Smith – and a 3,000-yard passer John David Booty, with 3,347 yards. The team produced top 20 statistics in most NCAA offensive categories and concluded with a 32–18 win over the then #3 ranked team the University of Michigan in the Rose Bowl.Kiffin helped guide USC to a 23–3 record during his tenure as offensive coordinator, an 88.5% win percentage; however, in June 2010, the NCAA retroactively declared Bush ineligible for the entire 2005 season, and forced USC to vacate all of its 2005 wins. Litigation from former coach Todd McNair to fight his defamation and to overturn those vacancies went on for ten years, before the defamation suit finally was settled through mediation in July 2021. The wins remained vacated.
Oakland Raiders
Raiders' owner Al Davis hired the 31-year-old Kiffin on January 23, 2007, making him the youngest head coach in Oakland Raiders history, and signed Kiffin to a two-year contract worth about $4 million with a team option for 2009. Pro Football Hall of Fame Coach John Madden was 32 when he was elevated to the head post by Davis in 1969. Davis had been known to select young, up-and-coming coaches in their thirties; those hires who fared well include Madden, Mike Shanahan, and Jon Gruden. All have won Super Bowls, though Madden is the only one of the three to win a championship with the Raiders. Davis himself was 34 when he began his tenure as coach of the Raiders. Age 31 at the time of his hiring by the Raiders, Kiffin became the youngest head coach in modern NFL history ; he also surpassed the New York Jets' Eric Mangini and the Pittsburgh Steelers' Mike Tomlin as the youngest head coach since the AFL–NFL merger in 1970.On August 12, 2007, in his NFL head coaching debut, Kiffin and the Raiders won their preseason opener 27–23 over the Arizona Cardinals. Kiffin vehemently opposed the selection of LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell in the 2007 NFL draft, who would eventually be regarded as one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history. Russell held out until September 12, and did not make his first start until December 2, long after the season was effectively over. Kiffin recorded his first regular season win as an NFL head coach on September 23, 2007; the Raiders defeated the Cleveland Browns by a score of 26–24 when defensive lineman Tommy Kelly blocked a late Cleveland field goal. At his end-of-the-season press conference, Kiffin told the media and his players that he had many plans and changes he was going to make in the 2008 offseason. When asked by his players about rumors that Kiffin was interested in open coaching positions in college football, he told them he never thought the rumors were important enough to address because he was never planning to leave.
Departure from the Raiders
On January 25, 2008, ESPN NFL analyst Chris Mortensen reported that Davis, who was not known for being patient with his coaches, tried to force Kiffin to resign after his first season ended with a 4–12 record. A source allegedly close to Kiffin told Mortensen that Kiffin would not resign, and would not sign the letter of resignation that would cause him to forfeit his $2 million salary for the remaining guaranteed year of his contract. However, the Raiders denied the story, while Kiffin refused to comment.On September 15, 2008, NBC Sports reported Davis was unhappy with Kiffin, and intended to fire him as soon as the following Monday or Tuesday. On September 30, 2008, Davis fired Kiffin over the telephone. At the televised news conference announcing the firing, Davis called Kiffin "a flat-out liar" and said he was guilty of "bringing disgrace to the organization". The Raiders said the move was made for cause, meaning they would terminate his contract immediately without paying the $2.6 million that was left on it for 2008. Kiffin later added in an interview with ESPN that he was not proud to be associated with Davis's accusations and was actually more embarrassed for Davis than himself. The Raiders subsequently released a letter Davis sent to Kiffin on September 12 that warned him that he was on the verge of being fired for "conduct detrimental to the Raiders", including repeated instances of making excuses and outright lies. Kiffin's post-firing press conference was canceled. Kiffin filed a grievance against the Raiders, claiming that he was fired without cause, but on November 15, 2010, an arbitrator ruled that Davis did indeed have cause to fire Kiffin. Kiffin's short tenure as the Raiders' head coach ended with a 5–15 record. Offensive line coach Tom Cable was given interim head coaching duties for the remainder of the 2008 season and was later made their permanent head coach on February 4, 2009.
Several of his former Raiders staff expressed interest as Kiffin began assembling his new staff at the University of Tennessee. On December 15, 2008, Raiders head coach Cable lashed out at Kiffin for hiring one of his assistants, James Cregg, with two weeks remaining in the NFL season. Cable called the timing of Cregg's departure "wrong in the business of coaching" and indicated he had lost respect for Kiffin and planned to confront him about it. Nothing further was said publicly regarding the incident.
Despite the animosity between the Raiders and Kiffin, he released a statement following Al Davis's death in October 2011 stating that although their relationship had not ended well, he appreciated the opportunity Davis had given him and had "nothing but the greatest respect" for the late Raiders owner.
Tennessee Volunteers
On November 28, 2008, multiple media outlets reported that Kiffin would be the next head football coach for the University of Tennessee Volunteers in 2009, replacing head coach Phillip Fulmer, who was fired. Tennessee formally introduced Kiffin as the school's 21st head football coach on December 1, 2008, in a 2:00 p.m. news conference.At the age of 33, Kiffin was hired by Tennessee and became the youngest active head coach in Division I FBS, surpassing Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald.
Kiffin signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Tennessee on November 30, 2008. The deal included $2 million in 2009, with additional performance bonuses, including a $300,000 bonus if Tennessee was to compete for the national championship. His salary was set to increase over the six-year-deal, reaching a high of $2.75 million in 2014. The average salary of the deal was $2.375 million. If Kiffin had been fired in 2009 or 2010, the school would have to pay him $7.5 million under a buyout clause; after the 2012 season, the buyout clause decreased to $5 million. Kiffin's contract stated that if he resigned, he would have to pay UT $1 million in 2009, with the sum decreasing by $200,000 each year of his contract.
Kiffin led the Volunteers to a 7–6 record in 2009, an improvement from their 5–7 record in 2008. Highlights included wins over South Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky. However, the season was marred by losses to UCLA, Florida, Auburn, Alabama, and Ole Miss, as well as a 23-point blow-out loss to Virginia Tech in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. After one season as coach, Kiffin left the Volunteers during the 2010 recruiting season to accept the head coaching job at the University of Southern California after Carroll left for the Seattle Seahawks.