Legendary coach Monte Kiffin, father of Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, dies at 84
Long time and Hall of Fame football coach Monte Kiffin died at the age of 84 on Thursday. Ole Miss announced Kiffin passed away peacefully in his sleep.
Father to Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, Monte served as an analyst on his son’s staff at Ole Miss the last four seasons.
“As his grandson Knox said, he’s free of pain and smiling down on us from above,” a post on X by the Ole Miss football account read.
One of the greatest defensive minds in football, Kiffin was the founder of the Tampa 2 defense during his lengthy tenure with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He coached in the NFL for 33 years from 1983 to 2016 with eight different teams. Kiffin also had coaching stints in the college ranks on Lane’s staffs at Tennessee and Florida Atlantic before coming to Oxford in 2019.
Kiffin’s lone stint as a head coach was at North Carolina State from 1980 to 1982 before joining the Green Bay Packers staff in 1983.
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Last month Kiffin was honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame as one of 15 recipients for this year’s Award of Excellence, a program that was launched two years ago to recognize significant contributions to the game by those outside of the ranks of players and head coaches.
“I try to be more like him every year. I think he’s an amazing person when it comes to relationships with the other coaches and players and developing them off the field,” Lane Kiffin said about his father last year. “He’s left a legacy and touched a lot of people, so I really try to work on that and I’ve got a long way to go.”
Three years ago the Buccaneers honored Kiffin by putting him in their Ring of Honor. He is still, to this day, the only assistant coach in the franchise’s history to be given that honor.
“Monte Kiffin led the Tampa Two defense that became the signature identity of our team in the late ’90s and eventually propelled us to our first Super Bowl championship,” said Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner/ co-chairman Byran Glazer in 2021. “It was Monte’s coaching, leadership and ability to maximize the strengths of his players that elevated that defense to one of the most feared units of its time. Congratulations to Monte and the entire Kiffin family on this extremely well-deserved honor.”
