BOCA RATON – As so often happens, the kids said out loud what many of the adults were thinking.
On the day FAU hired him to be the fifth football coach in program history, Lane Kiffin’s own children pretty much summed up what many across the nation surmised about the Alabama offensive’s coordinator’s move to FAU.
FAU athletic director Pat Chun told the crowd comprised of FAU staff members, football players, local high school coaches and media that earlier in the day he was next to Kiffin when the new Owls’ coach chatted with his daughter, Landry, via FaceTime.
Landry had been watching national media coverage of Kiffin’s job change. He asked what the media said.
“You’re only going to be there for a couple years and leave,” Chun said Landry responded. “(Kiffin) said, ‘Don’t say that, my bosses are all around me.’”
Landry was downright effusive compared to Kiffin’s 7-year-old son Knox, who was, shall we say, surprised to learn that his father accepted a job at FAU.
“They stink!” Kiffin said his son told him. “They are not even going to a bowl game.”
Which is precisely why Kiffin found a job in Boca Raton.
FAU fired previous head coach Charlie Partridge following three 3-9 seasons in as many years. The Owls haven’t been to a bowl since 2008. Most thought Kiffin would leave Alabama for a more highly-regarded job. He almost landed the Houston opening. Few had the offensive mastermind heading to Conference USA.
As offensive coordinator Kiffin led Alabama to last year’s national championship and the Crimson Tide are the favorite to add another title this season. He signed a five-year contract with a base salary of $950,000 per year to coach in Boca Raton, doing so minutes before Tuesday’s press conference. The contract is so fresh that money he’ll earn for reaching certain incentives, including reaching the C-USA championship game, winning that game and leading FAU to a bowl game, are listed as “TBD.”
In an effort to ensure that what Landry was hearing wouldn’t happen, FAU protected itself by including a stiff buyout should Kiffin elect to leave early: $2.5 million after one year – a total that drops by $500,000 each successive year.
To counter Knox’s assertion, Lane Kiffin believes FAU will win soon because, well, the Owls’ new head coach is Lane Kiffin.
He promises to be a different type of head coach than he was at previous stops in Tennessee and USC, where he was a combined 35-21. In those places, particularly Tennessee, Kiffin believed he needed to say and do the outrageous to elevate buzz around the program.
“We needed to get some energy right away,” Kiffin said of his one-year stint with the Volunteers. “We wanted to win right away and felt that Tennessee, at that point, was dramatically behind two programs especially: Florida and coach [Urban] Meyer, and coach [Nick] Saban was at Alabama [which] was No. 1 in the country that year and had it going. The point at Tennessee was, OK, we need to get attention right now for recruiting, regardless, because we are so far behind.”
In Boca Raton Kiffin becomes the center of attention. He intends to use his relative celebrity to his advantage – especially when it comes to recruiting.
“I think that we’re in a different place because it’s all about recruiting, about what recruits know,” Kiffin said. “I think they recognize the name. They see it because of Alabama’s run and USC. These kids have now, for 10 years, they’ve seen Lane Kiffin. They’ve seen him on the sidelines. They’ve seen the great offense, the great players. This is more about, OK, let’s spend our time on our own players. Let’s spend our time in recruiting on selling our program and where they fit in our program.”
Kiffin’s tenure at Tennessee and USC didn’t end well. He bolted Tennessee after one 7-6 season, leaving NCAA investigators and angry Vol fans in his wake. His Trojans won 10 games during Kiffin’s first season as coach, but by the middle of the fourth season Kiffin found himself fired at the airport following a loss to Arizona St.
And in Kiffin’s first head coaching job, with the Oakland Raiders, Al Davis fired the youngest coach in the NFL’s modern era midway through his second season, calling Kiffin a “flat-out liar,” and adding, “I think he conned me like he conned all you people.”
After three years working under Saban, Kiffin says he will be a different kind of coach this time around.
Kiffin had called the plays in previous stops but he pointed to the way Saban, a defensive-minded coach manages the Alabama job – especially the Tide’s vaunted defense.
“It’s his defense that he built initially, but then he trains guys to go and do things – and I think that’s an area that I would change from where I was before,” Kiffin said. “I was so focused on Xs and Os and offensive football versus managing the entire team that I know I could have done a better job focusing more on defense, special teams, the whole university relationships, on the university versus just always being just tunnel vision on Xs and Os.”
Kiffin will return to Alabama on Tuesday night. He intends to remain with the Crimson Tide until season’s end, though he might pop back down to Boca Raton during Christmas break.
For the next month he will effectively work two jobs.
“When I go back I’ll spend part time at Alabama, during the day at Alabama, and there’s time at night where everybody else is going home I’ll stay up there and I’ll work on (FAU) stuff – whether it’s recruiting, whether it’s evaluation of players, whether it’s calling guys on the phone, whether it’s talking to guys on staff, too,” Kiffin said.
After coaching in the SEC, PAC 12 and the NFL, Kiffin understands that, at FAU, there’s a different challenge ahead of him.
“It’s just a different place and a different feeling, a place where you’re building something and doing something that’s never been done before versus trying to do what’s already been done. It’s going to be a special run.
“It’s going to feel different because we’re taking everyone here to a place they haven’t been. There’s so much excitement for me about doing that that I’m just excited where we’re at right now. I’m very fortunate and grateful for the opportunity.”
As alumni I wish Lane success with our team.