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Lane Kiffin "glad" to have brother, Chris, back on Ole Miss football staff

11by:Jake Thompson•02/02/22•

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Chris Kiffin
Chris Kiffin

There has been plenty of shuffling going on within Ole Miss football head coach Lane Kiffin’s staff, both coming and going, but maybe the one move that means the most is the hiring of his brother.

Last month, Kiffin announced the return of Chris Kiffin back to the program to become the co-defensive coordinator and linebackers coach. The hire marks the second stint with the Rebels for Chris, who coached at Ole Miss from 2012 to 2017.

The Kiffins reunited initially at FAU when Chris left Ole Miss to become the defensive coordinator under his brother in 2017.

Under Kiffin, the Owls defense held opponents to less than 400 yards of offense. Opponents had a third down conversion rate of 39 percent against the Owls that season.

“He’s been at a lot of places and ran our defense at FAU and were really good that year,” said Lane on Tuesday during a Zoom press conference. “(He) went to the NFL since then and learned at a lot at the different places and he had a lot of really good players.

“That makes it easy to recruit, too, and having been here before when they were really good, which I think is good for recruiting for players. (You can say), ‘Hey, he coached these guys there were here before.’ So, glad for that, but we’ve made a lot of hires.”

From 2018 to 2021, Kiffin worked in the NFL for the San Francisco 49ers and Cleveland Browns before circling back to Ole Miss.

Kiffin is one of many new additions to the Rebel coaching staff in January, both on offense and defense.

There was a sense of a mass exodus when former offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, former co-defensive coordinator D.J. Durkin and other position coaches were leaving the program.

Kiffin has replaced many of the departures, including Charlie Weis, Jr. as co-offensive coordinator — the other offensive coordinator has yet to be named — while also finding a new strength and conditioning coach in Nick Savage.

Last week, Kiffin announced the hiring of Sam Carter as the team’s new cornerbacks coach.

“People can say in recruiting, ‘Well hey, everybody’s leaving and everything.’ Well no, they’re going to really good jobs,” Kiffin said. “A number of them, whether it’s alma mater or the town they’re from, that happens. Just like the year before. When you win that happens.

“Alabama loses a lot of coaches every year and they’re pretty good. I think it’s a really good problem to have that people want to take our coaches, strength coaches, personnel people. I think that’s a good thing. It’s a lot better than the other problem when nobody wants your guys when you win three games.”

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