Mississippi confirms hiring of Lane Kiffin as next head football coach

OXFORD, Miss. — Mississippi has announced that Florida Atlantic coach Lane Kiffin will be its next head football coach.

Kiffin will be introduced at a press conference at the school Monday. Kiffin led the Owls to the Conference USA title Saturday with a 49-6 defeat of Alabama-Birmingham.

Dan Wolken of USA TODAY Sports was the first to report Friday the two sides were close to a deal. 

"I couldn't be more excited to welcome coach Kiffin to the Ole Miss family," Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter said in a statement. "As we entered this process, we were looking for energy, innovativeness and a program builder who could excite our student-athletes and fans. Coach Kiffin checked every box and is a home run for our program. I look forward to locking arms with him to take Ole Miss football to a championship level."

This is a return to the SEC for Kiffin, who was the coach at Tennessee for one season and the offensive coordinator at Alabama for three seasons.

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"I am truly honored and humbled to join the Ole Miss family, and recognize this as a special opportunity to lead Rebel Football into the future," Kiffin said in the statement. "I am especially grateful to Keith Carter, chancellor [Glenn] Boyce and the entire Ole Miss family for their trust and confidence.

"Our staff and I will work tirelessly to recruit and develop successful players for this program, and I look forward to producing many exciting memories to add to Ole Miss' storied football legacy. I am excited to get to Oxford and begin the groundwork of building a championship program that Mississippi's flagship university deserves, and I'm thrilled to be back in the greatest athletics' conference in the nation. Hotty Toddy!"

Kiffin has a 61-34 record in seven-and-a-half seasons as a college head coach. In 2009, Kiffin led Tennessee to a 7-6 record before leaving Knoxville to coach at Southern California. Kiffin was fired from USC midway through his fourth season after compiling a 28-15 record.

Kiffin has been the head coach at Florida Atlantic since 2017. In three seasons, Kiffin has won two Conference USA championship game appearances and a 26-13 record.

In between his stints at USC and FAU, Kiffin worked as the offensive coordinator at Alabama. Over that time, Kiffin helped the Crimson Tide to three consecutive College Football Playoff appearances and a national championship in 2015. 

Prior to his job at Tennessee, Kiffin worked for two seasons as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders in the NFL. At the time, he was the youngest head coach in NFL history. Before that, Kiffin worked as an offensive assistant at USC between 2001-06. 

Kiffin's father is longtime NFL assistant coach Monte Kiffin, The elder Kiffin won a Super Bowl as defensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2002. Kiffin's younger brother Chris was the defensive line coach at Ole Miss from 2012-16.

The NCAA alleged four recruiting violations against Chris Kiffin, of which he admitted to three. One such violation included arranging over $1,000 worth of impermissible benefits for a recruit. 

Ole Miss parted ways with former head coach Matt Luke on Sunday night. Luke went 15-21 in three years as Ole Miss' head coach, counting a season where he was the interim head coach. Ole Miss was on NCAA probation for Luke's first two seasons on the job, going 6-6 and 5-7 in the two years. In 2019, with the probation lifted, Luke's team went 4-8 and missed out on a bowl bid.

Per his contract, Kiffin will owe Florida Atlantic a $1.5 million buyout. In addition, according to promissory note with the school, he will owe at least $1.2 million related to a $2 million loan that Florida Atlantic gave him in 2017 in order to facilitate his relocation to a home within 25 miles of Boca Raton.

The loan, plus a variable rate of interest that has ended up being around 2%, was being forgiven at a rate of one-fifth of the amount owed for each year worked. The forgiveness occurred early in each calendar year – so one-fifth of the principal, plus the interest on that portion, was forgiven in 2018 and another fifth was forgiven in 2019.

Kiffin has been working under a 10-year contract due to expire on Dec. 31, 2027.

His annual base salary is $950,000 and he’s been getting a $50,000 retention payment each Jan. 15, for a basic annual total from the school of $1 million.

Contributing: Steve Berkowitz