Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has certainly experienced his fair share of ups and downs during his two decade coaching career.
The moment that likely left him at rock bottom was being fired at USC, his dream job, after losing to Arizona State.
“I wasn’t left on the tarmac,” Kiffin said on the Pat McAfee Show on Thursday. “We landed, and then the AD, in an airport side room, met with me. I was actually on the bus going back to the facility at USC, and he called me in at like 3 a.m. at the private airport there, and that’s where he told me.”
During his documentary, ‘Many Lives of Kiffin’, he talked about having his dream job come in following Pete Carroll’s exit to Seattle.
Little did he know that by leaving Tennessee in the middle of the night would lead to such struggles as the Trojans’ were dealt harsh NCAA penalties from the Reggie Bush era.
Kiffin inherited a program that received a two-year bowl ban along with 30 scholarships taken away due to impermissible benefits that the Bush family received.
Despite restrictions, USC won 18 games over Kiffin’s two years and went into the 2012 ranked as the preseason No. 1 team before falling out of the top 25 by October.
While Kiffin’s up-and-down head coaching career led to troubling times in his personal life, he was able to rebound just months later when Nick Saban hired him as offensive coordinator at Alabama.
The move to work under Saban for three seasons helped rehabilitate Kiffin’s image and career, leading to a gig at Florida Atlantic where he won two conference titles in three seasons.
Now at Ole Miss, time has healed wounds as he makes a name for himself in a town that has allowed him to reflect on what really matters in life: being a father and leader of young men.