Lane Kiffin New USC Head Coach

Photo: Image of Sport / PR Photos

Un… freaking… believable.

After just one season at Tennessee, head coach Lane Kiffin is on his way back to the University of Southern California. Kiffin takes over for Pete Carroll, who decided to jump to the NFL as coach of the Seattle Seahawks.

USC athletic director Mike Garrett released a statement Tuesday night confirming Kiffin as its new football coach.

“We are really excited to welcome Lane Kiffin back to USC,” Garrett said in a statement. “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. I’m confident he and his staff will keep USC football performing at the high level that we expect.”

Kiffin served on Carroll’s USC staff from 2001-06 before becoming head coach for the Oakland Raiders, and later moving on to Tennessee. He will bring his father, Monte Kiffin, and assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator Ed Orgeron to USC with him.

This is beautiful… honestly, I couldn’t be happier. Lane Kiffin is a walking, talking NCAA violation machine. This should be exciting to watch from a distance.

UPDATE: And so it begins. From Rob Lewis at VolQuest:

We have heard from multiple sources, including defensive tackle Marlon Walls that Ed Orgeron was on the phone tonight with some of the early enrollees telling them not to go to class tomorrow and attempting to begin the process of recruiting them to USC.

So, is it a recruiting violation if Orgeron is shuffling UT recruits to USC before he is an official member of the USC coaching staff? Has he signed a contract yet? At the very least, it’s a shady practice.

Get ready USC fans… you are going to see a lot this.