KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Lane Kiffin is returning to Southern California as the Trojans’ football coach after just one season at Tennessee.
Kiffin was chosen Tuesday to replace Pete Carroll, his mentor and employer for six seasons. Kiffin was the Trojans’ offensive coordinator before brief stints with the Oakland Raiders and the Volunteers.
“This was not an easy decision,” he said Tuesday night 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.”
His father, respected defensive coach Monte Kiffin, and longtime USC assistant Ed Or-geron also will leave Tennessee to join him, USC said. Vols assistant Kippy Brown, who joined Kiffin’s staff less than four weeks ago, was promoted to interim coach of the team.
The Trojans needed one day to fill one of the most desirable jobs in college football. Carroll formally took over the Seattle Seahawks on Tuesday after winning 97 games, seven Pac-10 championships and two national titles over the past nine years.
“We are really excited to welcome Lane Kiffin back to USC,” Trojans athletic director Mike Garrett said. “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.”
Knoxville fire officials and university police were on campus after Kiffin’s announcement as students burned mattresses and gathered around the athletic department building in hopes of blocking Kiffin from leaving campus.
“I think the students have had kind of a violent reaction to that, and a lot of them are disheartened, upset and feel betrayed that less than a year in that he would be leaving and taking off,” Knoxville Fire Department spokesman D.J. Corcoran said.
