Lane Kiffin

Age 31 at the time of his hiring by the Raiders (32 when he coached his first game), Kiffin became the youngest head coach in modern NFL history (i.e. since 1946); he also surpassed the New York Jets' Eric Mangini and the Pittsburgh Steelers' Mike Tomlin as the youngest head coach since the AFL–NFL merger in 1970.

Pro Football Hall of Fame Coach John Madden was 32 when he was elevated to the head post by Davis in 1969.

Davis had been known to select young, up-and-coming coaches in their thirties; those hires who fared well include Madden, Mike Shanahan, and Jon Gruden.

All have won Super Bowls, though Madden is the only one of the three to win a championship with the Raiders.

Davis himself was 34 when he began his tenure as coach of the Raiders.

Lane Monte Kiffin (born May 9, 1975) is an American football coach who is the head coach of the Ole Miss Rebels.

He graduated from Bloomington Jefferson High School in Minnesota in 1994, and committed to Fresno State University to play college football.

He played backup quarterback for the Bulldogs, giving up his senior season to become a Student Assistant Coach for position coach Jeff Tedford.

According to teammate David Carr, Monte Kiffin forbade his son from quitting the team because of lack of playing time, so Lane became a coach instead.

Kiffin graduated from Fresno State in 1998.

Kiffin worked as a graduate assistant for one year at Colorado State University.

In 1999, while he was working with the offensive line, the Rams played in the Liberty Bowl.

Kiffin secured a job with the Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL as a quality control assistant for one year.

He was then hired by head coach Pete Carroll as a tight ends coach at USC.

Kiffin began working with the University of Southern California (USC) staff during the 2001 season and became the wide receivers coach prior to the 2002 season.

For the 2004 season, he added the duties of passing game coordinator, and he was promoted to offensive coordinator along with Steve Sarkisian who returned as USC's assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach for the 2005 season after Norm Chow left USC for the same position with the NFL's Tennessee Titans.

In addition to his duties as offensive coordinator, Kiffin took the reins as recruiting coordinator that year.

Along with these duties, Kiffin continued as the wide receivers coach.

Kiffin was the offensive coordinator for the USC Trojans football team from 2005 to 2006, head coach of the National Football League's Oakland Raiders from 2007 to 2008, head coach of the University of Tennessee Volunteers college football team in 2009, and head coach of the Trojans from 2010 to 2013.

Under Kiffin and Sarkisian, the 2005 USC offense produced numerous school records, averaging 49.1 points and 579 yards per game and becoming the first in NCAA history to have a 3,000 yard passer (Matt Leinart), two 1,000 yard rushers (Reggie Bush and LenDale White), and a 1,000 yard receiver (Dwayne Jarrett).

Steve Smith fell a few yards short of also surpassing 1,000 yards in receiving.

In Kiffin's three years as recruiting coordinator at USC, the Trojans had the top ranked recruiting class in college football every year.

In 2006, the Trojans finished first in the Pac-10 in passing efficiency by averaging 142.8 passer rating, produced two, 1,000-yard receivers – Dwayne Jarrett (1,105) and Steve Smith (1,083) – and a 3,000-yard passer John David Booty, with 3,347 yards.

The team produced top 20 statistics in most NCAA offensive categories and concluded with a 32–18 win over the then #3 ranked team the University of Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

Raiders' owner Al Davis hired the 31 year-old Kiffin on January 23, 2007, making him the youngest head coach in Oakland Raiders history, and signed Kiffin to a two-year contract worth about $4 million with a team option for 2009.

On August 12, 2007, in his NFL head coaching debut, Kiffin and the Raiders won their preseason opener 27–23 over the Arizona Cardinals.

Kiffin vehemently opposed the selection of LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell in the 2007 NFL Draft, who would eventually be regarded as one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history.

Russell held out until September 12, and did not make his first start until December 2, long after the season was effectively over.

Kiffin recorded his first regular season win as an NFL head coach on September 23, 2007; the Raiders defeated the Cleveland Browns by a score of 26–24 when defensive lineman Tommy Kelly blocked a late Cleveland field goal.

At his end-of-the-season press conference, Kiffin told the media and his players that he had many plans and changes he was going to make in the 2008 offseason.

When asked by his players about rumors that Kiffin was interested in open coaching positions in college football, he told them he never thought the rumors were important enough to address because he was never planning to leave.

On January 25, 2008, ESPN NFL analyst Chris Mortensen reported that Davis, who was not known for being patient with his coaches, tried to force Kiffin to resign after his first season ended with a 4–12 record.

A source allegedly close to Kiffin told Mortensen that Kiffin would not resign, and would not sign the letter of resignation that would cause him to forfeit his $2 million salary for the remaining guaranteed year of his contract.

However, the Raiders denied the story, while Kiffin refused to comment.

Kiffin helped guide USC to a 23–3 record during his tenure as offensive coordinator, an 88.5% win percentage; however, in June 2010, the NCAA retroactively declared Bush ineligible for the entire 2005 season, and forced USC to vacate all of its 2005 wins.

Litigation from former coach Todd McNair to fight his defamation and to overturn those vacancies went on for ten years, before the defamation suit finally was settled through mediation in July 2021.

The wins remained vacated.

Kiffin was the offensive coordinator at the University of Alabama from 2014 until 2016, when he was hired to be the head coach at Florida Atlantic, a position he held until December 2019, when he became the head coach at Ole Miss.

Kiffin is the son of longtime NFL defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin.

He was the youngest head coach in modern NFL history at the time when he joined the Raiders (until in 2017 when Sean McVay joined the Rams), and, for a time, was the youngest head coach of a BCS Conference team in college football.