Lane Kiffin, Californication

It took only 48 hours after the departure of Pete Carroll for the Trojans of USC to find their replacement. As of today  athletic director Mike Garrett has announced that Lane Kiffin will be the new head coach of Southern California. Kiffin’s coaching tenure was short and sweet, at the University of Tennessee. Kiffin and his father are headed to the other side of the country to coach the Southern California Trojans. In his first season as head coach, Kiffin posted a 7-6 regular season record, losing in the Outback Bowl to N0.11 Virginia Tech 37-14. Turning the previous season around two games (5-7) was nice, but many more improvements were made. His father Monte Kiffin, transformed them into a top 25 defense, ranking 22nd in total defense.

Kiffin joined the USC staff in 2001 as a tight ends coach, and the following year was promoted to a wide receivers coach, quickly working his way up the ladder. Soon after, he was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2005, and lasted there until 2007 when he decided to try his luck in the NFL.

After posting a pathetic 5-15 NFL record with the Oakland Raiders and a subpar campaign at Tennessee, you might be wondering why Lane? It’s simple: He brings the same type of swagger that Pete Carroll had over the years, loves the media, he’s got the hair, and I’m sure I don’t need to mention his stunning wife and gorgeous daughter. From the coaching aspect he brings it all – he’s an offensive minded coach which USC desperately needed during the 2009 season, and on the other side of the ball he brings one of the best defensive coaches ever. Monte Kiffin.

I’ll start by breaking it down, first on the offensive side. In his two year stint as offensive coordinator Kiffin coached possibly the best offense’s of all time, consisting of Heisman winners Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart, along with Lendale White, Dwayne Jarret and Steve Smith. In his first year as offensive coordinator the USC offense averaged 49.1 points and 579 yards per game, and practically broke every offensive record at the time. After losing almost the entire offense most people thought this would be USC’s rebuilding year, but they thought wrong. In 2006 the USC offense averaged 30.5 points, and 391 yards per game, while finishing the year off strong by beating the Michigan Wolverines 32-18 in the Rose Bowl.

Now to talk about the defensive genius, Monte Kiffin. There really isn’t much needed to say why they wanted Lane to bring his father. Monte was the mastermind behind the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense and the creator of the infamous Tampa 2 defense, and was the sole man responsible for the five interception performance his Bucaaneers put on in the 2002 Super Bowl. He has always ranked in the top ten defense in the NFL, and after just one year turned Tennessee from a sub par defense to one of the toughest in the nation. Now just imagine what he’ll do now after being able to sign any recruit he wants.