From UM Media Relations:
Lane Kiffin was publicly introduced as the 39th head coach in Rebel football history on Monday at The Pavilion at Ole Miss. The ceremonies began with a public introduction on Craddock Court, followed by a press conference. Below is a transcript from both portions of Kiffin's introduction.
Kiffin, who arrives in Oxford after three seasons in the same position at FAU, has more than 10 years of head coaching experience, including eight years at the NCAA level where he has posted an all-time record of 61-34. Kiffin's resume as a head and assistant coach includes stops at Tennessee, USC and Alabama, as well as the NFL's Oakland Raiders.
OLE MISS CHANCELLOR GLENN BOYCE
Opening Statement:
"What a great day to be a Rebel. Without a doubt. We want to welcome everybody to The Pavilion at Ole Miss. It is the best place to watch college basketball in the country without a doubt; a great facility. Today is an outstanding and exciting day for the Ole Miss family, and in particular, for our football program. First, I want to acknowledge the exceptional job done by our Athletics Director Keith Carter. He is moving swiftly and decisively to position Ole Miss Athletics for a new era of success. I want to thank Keith (Carter) for his tremendous leadership and vision that got us to today's announcements. And I want to thank all of you and all of Rebel nation, especially those of you that came out today to show Coach (Lane) Kiffin what passionate fans we have. Coach, they are the best in America. When the search process began for a head football coach, I asked Keith to find a coach that possessed three traits. Number one: a proven record of success. Number two: an understanding of the competitive landscape of the SEC; because it is our desire to not just compete, but it is our desire to win. That is what we are all about and who we will be. Finally, the leadership and the ability that is on display here today to excite our fans. Keith absolutely nailed it. On behalf of the university, I am so excited to issue a warm and Hotty Toddy welcome to our new Head Football Coach, Lane Kiffin. And now it is my pleasure to bring Keith forward to do the honors."
OLE MISS VICE CHANCELLOR FOR INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS KEITH CARTER
Opening Statement:
"It feels like everybody is pretty excited. Thank you to Chancellor (Glenn) Boyce for your support and leadership throughout this process. He was great and helped me along the way to get this thing done. I want to thank our search partner Chad Chatlos of Ventura Partners who was also very instrumental. He obviously helped with a lot of different things, confidentiality, and so many different things. Do we have any former football players here? If you are a former football player, please stand up. We've got some current guys. Stand up if you are a current football player. I want to say thank you to our staff as well. Throughout this process, there have been so many people that have been instrumental in helping with the transition, so thank you to all of our staff. Too many to name individually, but thank you so much. I want to welcome Coach (Lane) Kiffin's family here today. We have Landry, Presley, and Knox. I think that everybody in here is pretty excited, but I don't think anybody was as excited as Knox was on Saturday morning. That was awesome. Coach's parents and family members are here and we want to welcome them to Oxford as well.
"When I stood before you last week, I talked about finding a coach that could bring energy, passion, and a track record of success. We talked about somebody who can be a program builder and somebody who can galvanize and unite Rebel nation. As I got started with this search, I spoke to a number of potential candidates to try and identify someone that can check all of those boxes, and also someone that can be a great representative of our flagship institution. We had a tremendous response of qualified coaches around the country but one name stood out. I knew Lane Kiffin was highly respected as one of the brightest minds in college football, but as we went through the process, I learned so much more about him. Coach Kiffin is an innovator. He engineered some of the most creative and high-powered offenses in college football. Regardless of the conference, talent level, or size of the stage, his teams have exhibited toughness, cutting-edge play-calling, and they put a lot of points on the board. Coach Kiffin has a championship pedigree. He's been a part of dynasties at Alabama and USC working under some of the most respected coaches in the sport. Obviously, he grew up in a football family with his legendary father Monte Kiffin, who is with us here today. Coach Kiffin is a program builder. In his most recent position, he inherited a struggling program at FAU and immediately turned them into a championship program with two titles in the last three years down in Boca Raton. Finally, Coach Kiffin is a lightning rod. As you have seen, his presence alone can generate confidence, energy, and swagger that can inspire student-athletes to reach their full potential while galvanizing Rebel nation. But I also learned who Coach Kiffin is as a person. He has spent his life under a microscope, and he talked a lot about how much he has grown on that journey. He has experienced the highest levels of the sport, and it has shaped him into the leader that he is today. He has a passion for student-athletes and wants to help mold them as men and prepare them for life after football. Once I sat down with Coach Kiffin, I immediately realized we had a shared vision for Ole Miss football. I was very impressed with his knowledge of Ole Miss and his interest in our job. We talked about Rebel football having the opportunity to compete at the highest level and win championships. Finally, we talked about locking arms together and building a consistent winner than can sustain long-term success. With that, I couldn't be more excited to introduce to you our newest Rebel, your new Head Football Coach, Lane Kiffin."
On the relationship between Carter and Kiffin:
"No, we did not know each other before. I was able to get on the phone with Lane kind of in the middle of the week and we had a great conversation. We talked about some really good things and obviously knowing him for afar he checked the boxes on a lot of what we had talked about in what we wanted to bring to Ole Miss. But obviously you have to build a personal relationship with somebody. We got on the phone and had a great conversation and then was able to go down and spend about two and half to three hours with him face-to-face. We talked about a lot of different things; football, life, vision, philosophy, all those things. I think after I left that meeting I felt very comfortable that we were going to align on a lot of different things and we were able to get it done."
On recruiting and staff:
"I haven't spoken to specifics, but obviously Coach Kiffin will lead that charge. I think what we did with the assistant pool and the staff pool is very competitive and will give him the opportunity to work with the very highest level, but certainly those will be his decisions and we'll do everything we can to support."
On the link between an Athletics Director and a big coaching hire:
"For me, it was exactly what I said last week during the press conference. I wanted to go find the best coach for our situation. Certainly, we're going to be linked. We talked about locking arms and doing this thing together. I mentioned to him when we were meeting that I still haven't signed my contract yet, so I plan on being here a long time. Certainly, we're going to be linked, but my goal was to find the best coach that can galvanize and fan base, be the leader of young men, but at the end of the day we want to win a lot of games."
On fan movement behind Lane:
"Yes, you could feel that. You could feel that a little bit for sure. I think that when we talked, we didn't talk until the middle of the week, we talked to a few other people and talked to him and realized the charisma and the energy that he had was going to be perfect for coming in here and doing the thing we needed to do."
On if the process was stressful:
"Sorry if my facial expression showed the answer to that. There was some stress to it for sure. And let me say this, this has been a hard week for Ole Miss Athletics in general, not just football. There's been some changes we've had to make, but certainly the tough part of this business is after you make a change you have to jump to the next step. I did that working with Chad (Chatlos) and our searching consultant. We were able to jump right in and get the search going, but if you're going to make a change you have to get the next one right. There's a lot of pressure to do that, and I couldn't be happier with our choice and I think we got it right."
OLE MISS HEAD COACH LANE KIFFIN
Opening statement:
"Thank you. I'm extremely honored to stand here today. The support and excitement at the airport was amazing. To get off the plane and have what seemed like thousands of people there just made me feel so welcome to myself and now to my family today. It's been really amazing in 12 hours.
"This has been a long journey. About 10 years ago we left the SEC, and now we're coming back. There's nothing like it. I've said it before: there's football, and there's the SEC. No matter where you go, no matter where you coach, there is nothing like it. Being away from it for three years, sometimes when you leave something you realize what it really is. We had a great three years down at Florida Atlantic with two conference championships, two 10 and 11-win seasons, but there was something missing. There was something missing myself walking out into those stadiums and the energy around it, the tailgating around it before, the night before in the hotels. I'm just extremely excited to be back.
"Everyone around this program is extremely important. Everybody in here today, our players, and how we represent it on and off the field. This is a partnership here coming together today that I believe takes Ole Miss to a national level. We can have the ability now to go anywhere in the nation, find the best players and get them to come play right here. The number one goal of the program that you can be proud of is the way that we do it. We play exciting football, compete for championships, and it's something that you're really proud of and excited for on Saturday mornings when you wake up to get over to that stadium.
"So many people to thank that I wouldn't be here today without. The kids coming here, they're excited and have already felt very welcome by the people so far. The Chancellor for bringing me here, Keith Carter and everyone involved in this process. We're very grateful and very humbled and very honored for that.
"I've been very fortunate to work with some of the best coaches in the history of all of sports. To be raised by my dad (Monte Kiffin), be around him and all of his success and how he's handled himself. And then to go work for Pete Carroll and learn for six years from him, which was an amazing experience there with 34 straight wins and three Heisman Trophy winners.
"And then to be able to work with the late Hall of Famer, (former Oakland Raiders owner) Al Davis was an amazing opportunity. And then lastly, three years prior to going to Florida Atlantic to work for Coach (Nick) Saban. I'm very grateful for the opportunity he gave me. I feel like he kind of put a stamp on me that was like hey, this guy can coach. Those three years, I'm very grateful. Those made me that much better so that we could come here today and take a job like this. We have an exact plan to do this, to combine these people that I've talked about, the systems and the things you learned from them to be able to come in here and do this thing at a very high level.
"We're very excited for this new chapter in my journey. This program has great history and tradition, from the Mannings to The Grove, Coach Vaught, the Walk of Champions, Chucky Mullins, we're excited to get started and I'm very grateful. We're going to create a culture here that our players, our coaches want to be at versus have to. We say that a lot around here. That you're excited when you wake up in the morning to come to work. You're excited to come to those 6 a.m. workouts, players, because you know you're going to get better. There's going to be a high energy and a great atmosphere that you want to be a part of.
"We didn't come here to be good, that's not why we're here today. We came here to be great. This was not a 'Hey, we're gonna take a job just to get back to the SEC.' I did an interview just yesterday and someone said that this place doesn't have tradition like the places you've been. I said I don't know about traditions, but I remember this: I remember at Alabama coming down here playing this matchup. In three years we only lost two games, and they were both to Ole Miss.
"We want to win, but we also need to earn the right to win. That takes a lot of work, and we're starting today. This program will be built on old-school principles with a new-school mindset of how to do that. That combination of new-wave thinking, we don't just do things a certain way because they've been done that way. We're always evolving, whether it's analytics, technology, recruiting, player development, sport science, game management. At the highest level, we're always evolving. These last six years, at the two stops, I was able to watch things, so that when we had this opportunity to come back to the greatest conference here, we'd be ready to do this thing the right way and win.
"A huge priority for us obviously will be our staff. We're going to hire a great staff of coaches that can come in here and help our players develop on and off the field. One of the things going through this process that I was asked is how are you different than you were, say, 10 years ago? I used to coach thinking that my job was to win games and get players to the NFL, and that was it. And now I understand developing the players off the field, developing relationships with them and chemistry with them so we're helping them way beyond just football.
"We're excited to get that started here, excited to represent Ole Miss. I spoke with (SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey) today, he's excited for us. Had a good talk with him, and I'm excited to work with him. I'm very familiar with this league, as you guys know. A lot of head coaches in this league I've worked with before.
"It's time to get to work. I'm honored to be the head coach at Ole Miss. I can't thank everyone enough that's been involved. We need the fans, alumni, former players all united, everybody on the same page, which is to win championships.
"Last thing, a message to recruits around the country. If you want to be featured at the highest level in the best conference in the world, compete for championships and be completely prepared for the NFL with a pro mindset – which is what we do every day with these kids, a pro mindset – so that you can come here, you can win championships in the best conference and you can get drafted the highest by coming here, there's no reason to go anywhere else but come right here to Ole Miss.
"Thanks for coming out. We're not going to be here a long time today doing a lot of talking. We're going to go to work and get this thing done. Thanks again."
On his relationship with Keith Carter:
"As Keith (Carter) mentioned, we did not know each other. Obviously, you look at a job you research the job just like they research you. I was excited with his background. He's obviously a great guy, great player here especially. When you bring recruits to a place and you're able to bring them to your Athletic Director, and they can sell the place and not just be from the top, but actually be a former student-athlete, that is huge. You know a really big thing with him is his passion for winning here. You need everyone to align here the right way and we're doing this thing together."
On what the staff will look like moving forward:
"You know we've been doing a lot of work on that trying to figure it out. We'll bring a great staff here. My agent and others have been able to help me out a lot with this process. We have two coaches we brought with us, our strength coach Wilson Love and assistant coach Kevin Smith, and then we'll figure it out. We'll interview the guys that our here and wish to keep some of them here."
On off-the-field growth over the years:
"Well that's a very fair question. When you go through obstacles those sometimes feel like really bad things, in fact I just read The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday that he sent me. That book really put things in a different light. You can have something like the firing at USC when you feel like at the time it's the end of the world and like you're never going to get a coaching job again. Or you're in sanctions, all that stuff that you go through. Then I look at that differently now and I say, 'Hey, you know what? Had that not happened I would have never gone to work for Nick Saban.' So that obstacle really helped me develop. I think going to work for Coach Saban was great from x's and o's and all that stuff, but really from how he manages the program from top to bottom. I feel like I was a head coach before back to USC, and was an offensive coordinator being a head coach and developed the players and had a lot of players drafted. Then I really kind of changed and realized okay, there is more to this. That's not my calling. God's calling for me wasn't just to get guys to the NFL and make a lot of money, it was to develop them off the field, have relationships with them, and help them carry themselves. I feel like there's a lot with player relationships that have kind of grown. And I'm not saying that today, it's been like that over the last three years as a head coach. I would like to think those FAU players will be successful."
On what made Ole Miss an attractive coaching destination:
"I'm not going to talk about other schools today obviously, the focus on Ole Miss. I remember losing here at Alabama and like I said we lost two regular season games to the same team. My brother Chris (Kiffin) was here and I also spent part of a summer here with family at Chris' house. I went around and saw the area and the people and thought this was a special place and that this would be a really neat place to live, and that you can win there because no one else was beating us. I always said that's a premier job. At times as the team performed like that and at times hasn't. That's partly why we're here today, so it's our job to bring it back to where it's been before and sustained. One thing I said I really liked was the program has done well at times and then all of a sudden, it'll go from nine or 10 to four or five wins. We'd have those jumps. When we nail this thing recruiting wise from top to bottom in our classes and not just stars at the top so our ranking's big and we develop the bottom of the roster."
On his initial impressions of the roster:
"I've looked at it a little bit. Obviously, I was coaching a game so I didn't get to study it from a personnel standpoint. It was more talking to people that knew around the league, and they have a lot of excitement from these last two classes, especially the last one. That made it very attractive."
On the early signing period:
"After this, I believe we're going somewhere. Last night, had a meeting with a recruit last night around 8 p.m., another one this morning around 6:30 a.m. You don't win in this conference just by being a good coach. You win in this conference by having really good assistants who get really good players. There's too much talent in this conference."
On the recruiting philosophy he learned under Nick Saban:
"I think more the NFL model as far as the evaluation. He's extremely thorough for evaluations on kids. Head coach, coordinator, position coach, they all evaluate them on a grading system. We recruited great at USC under Coach (Pete) Carrol under his system. Our first year there, even with the sanctions, had the No. 1 class in the country. There, I felt like it was more, we want these guys, and no we don't want these guys. This now, our system, is a lot like the NFL theme. Now in college football, where we have now high school, junior college kids, transfers, graduate transfer kids, guys leaving the program, it's basically like a free agency, and you have to figure out how you're going to manage that and which ones you're going to take. It didn't used to be like that. There were hardly any transfers. It used to be just taking high school and junior college kids."
On Ole Miss as a long-term job with the last three stints as coach being 2-3 years:
"That's a very fair question. Florida Atlantic was a very exciting place, it was not one of those that I was just leaving to leave, even if it was just to go to the SEC. It wasn't that; it had to be a place where things were aligned to be somewhere you can really win. I have zero reason to leave here. You're in the best conference that there is in football, you have great leadership, you've got great players, and an awesome fan base."
On his first meeting with the team:
"I believe that's the next step here in the next hour or so. I'll say a lot of the same things I said during my introduction, competition, everyone's got a clean slate, whether you've been a great player here or you haven't played at all. The good thing I think is, not to sound arrogant, but they know who we are. That usually makes it a lot easier when you come in and they already know you've done it. Wide receivers they say, I remember you coached Amari Cooper, him winning the Biletnikoff. Running back, they say, I remember you coached Derrick Henry and Reggie Bush, two Heisman's. We've got a lot of really good things to sell that we have proof of, so we're not saying this is what it's going to look like when we haven't done it before."
On players who have entered the transfer portal:
"We're going to look at everything, everyone has a clean slate. I had a kid today, just when I was walking around the field, came up to me. He entered the portal earlier in the season, and came up and said, 'I was leaving because I felt like I wasn't getting developed in the right type of offense for me. I've never met you, but I know what you've done, and I'm taking my name out of the portal if you'll have me back'."
On the reception from the Ole Miss fan base:
"It was a lot better than another tarmac experience I have had. That was really neat to see. I didn't know people were allowed on the tarmac. It was pretty cool, I felt like I was in a movie. All of a sudden, they were closing in on you with all the lights shining and they just keep closing and closing and I was like, alright where are we going here. They said just get out it'll be okay, and it was awesome. The reception was great, you could feel the energy. From my understanding, it's not easy to find parking there so that was really neat and special for them to go out of their way to do that. What I was told, it was basically a tailgate party."
On his conversations with Chris Kiffin in recent days:
"He was helpful for me. He was here before when they won, and then he's coached with me so he knows how I coach. I said, 'What do you think?' He said, 'I think that you'll kill it there. I've coached for you and see where you're at.' FAU had won three games three years in a row, so those seniors never won more than three games. In our first year, we won 11 games so he was there to see that so he really excited me. I have confidence, I know we're going to win but he really cemented that by some things he said."
On the technology and analytics approach to football:
"Nowadays, you don't necessarily have to hire someone to do all that. They have systems, so you hire a company, CAI is what we've used before. They do a great job. We were at the forefront of that and we were so excited about it we helped them get more clients. They change the way you think. You get a weekly report of things around the country. Here are all these situations and here's how people handle them. When you dive into it, you spend hours studying it. It doesn't tell you how to coach the way most coaches coach. The old school way, from an analytics standpoint, is extremely conservative. There are so many more times you should be going for it and not kicking long field goals, and people just punt or they go kick and they don't realize there's only a six percent chance to make that field goal. But as the coach, I said to put him out there and he missed it. I did what I was supposed to, versus where a lot of coaches are afraid of the press conference afterwards, and so they do the conservative, easy thing where you guys don't rip him. Get ready to rip me."
On how the SEC has changed:
"It was extremely competitive 10 years ago at Tennessee. I think maybe as competitive as the conference has ever been when you look at the coaches that were there. Coach (Steve) Spurrier, Urban Myer, obviously Nick Saban. I remember coming from Tennessee, the difference from the west coast Pac-12, may have been Pac-10 at the time, every week you had a nightmare matchup somewhere. There was a great defensive line and great front seven player on every single team in the conference from top to bottom. It's extremely competitive, I don't know if it's changed that much. It's always been that way. If anything, right now it's maybe a little more lopsided than it was back then when it was a little more even."
On the SEC:
"This is the highest level. The best players, the best coaches you go against, and if you're competitive, this is where you want to be. I had a great experience the last three years. In a lot of ways, that was more special than winning national championships. When Alabama was over, we were on I think a 26-game win streak. We won 34 straight at USC. The experience with those players that weren't going to go to the NFL at Florida Atlantic and that had never won, and to give them that, that was as special as anything, but I still felt like alright let's go back to the highest level now that we're prepared for this better. Having been the places that we've been. Going through the obstacles that we've gone through. We're in a much better position to win and do everything right from top to bottom and not make any of those mistakes we made 10 years ago at Tennessee."
On the challenges to become like Alabama:
"Like I said, it happened here. It happened two times here out of three years. The goal is to continue to beat people like that, and that takes a lot of work. It doesn't happen overnight. We have to hire a great staff. We have to recruit great kids, kids that are going to stay. Every kid is not going to be a five-star, so we have to develop them. Another great thing about my experience is that we were developing no-star kids at Florida Atlantic at times. There used to be a knock on us that everywhere I went we used to have the best players because we had the best recruiting classes wherever we were. I think that helps a lot because we know not every kid we get is going to be a five-star. Developing the bottom of the roster so they can help us play versus 10 years ago, it was let's go coach these guys and those guys will never play."
On the Egg Bowl rivalry:
"Anywhere you go you usually have rivalry games. I think this one is a little unique because they are both in the same conference, same state, and obviously they are both highly competitive in recruiting against one another. That's the biggest reason you win games. We're excited about keeping these kids home."
On if he contacted Coach (Nick) Saban or Coach (Pete) Carroll about the job:
"I did not. Obviously both coaches are going to be busy. Usually I bounce stuff off of Coach (Pete) Carroll, but I felt so good about the situation here that I didn't."
On the importance of recruiting Mississippi kids:
"It's extremely important. It started last night. I hadn't even changed clothes yet from the plane. Obviously, I can't talk specific kids, but it started last night and again at 6:30 this morning."
On his attire today…
"There's a lot of stories behind this outfit. I had some really good suits, but I went to Alabama and gained some weight so those don't fit anymore. This isn't even my suit. It's actually Jimmy Sexton's suit. He's lost weight so we're kind of even now."
