Here's what Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said to ESPN in his first interview since hire

Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin arrives in Oxford by plane on Sunday night after being hired to coach the Rebels football team on Saturday. Nick Suss, The Clarion-Ledger

OXFORD — Lane Kiffin is happy to be back in the SEC.

For the first time since accepting the head coaching job at Ole Miss on Saturday, Kiffin granted an interview, calling in to ESPN's bowl selection show Sunday to answer questions from host Rece Davis. 

Kiffin is coming off an impressive three-year run as the head coach at Florida Atlantic where he led the Owls to two conference championships. But Kiffin said there was one thing he felt was missing during that time.

"There’s college football everywhere and there’s the SEC," Kiffin said. "There’s nothing like it. The fan bases, the game day environment, I loved our time here at FAU and what we were able to do. But the one thing we were missing was that feeling every Saturday that we’re going against the best players in the world."

Returning to the SEC seemed to be a major factor for Kiffin in taking the Ole Miss job. Kiffin previously worked as the head coach at Tennessee and as the offensive coordinator for three seasons under Nick Saban at Alabama. 

Kiffin said he learned plenty of lessons working under Saban, especially when it comes to coaching focus. Kiffin admits that when he was the coach at Tennessee and USC he focused mostly on the Xs and Os of the game and trying to win on the field. Saban taught Kiffin that a major part of coaching is developing relationships with players, assistants and personnel.

There's one more thing Kiffin learned from his time at Alabama: Ole Miss can be a contender.

"We only lost two regular season games in three years combined and both were to Ole Miss," Kiffin said. "I saw what a great program it was and coaches have done great things before. So I’m excited with a lot of young talent to start working with them."

Building a staff
Kiffin told Davis on Sunday that he expects to have a number of his assistants in place within the next 48 hours. He said he doesn't know how many assistants he has committed at the moment but will continue discussions with potential staffers Sunday night.

One coach who Kiffin was cagy about was his brother, Chris. Now a defensive assistant with the San Fransisco 49ers, Chris Kiffin was a one-time Ole Miss assistant coach who admitted to committing multiple recruiting violations while on the Rebels' staff.

The younger Kiffin's show-cause recently expired and he's eligible to coach in college again, but Lane Kiffin said he hasn't decided whether he'd consider Chris for a position on his staff.

Kiffin's said he didn't want to rush assembling a staff. He said he learned from Saban that building a team around assistant coaches is key. And he has already identified an archetype of what kind of assistants he will court for the jobs.

"We’ll hire some great recruiters and great coaches, probably a lot of them with backgrounds in the SEC and the areas we want to recruit," Kiffin said. "Then we can start this process."

SOURCE: Suss, Nick. "Here's what Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said to ESPN in his first interview since hire." Mississippi Clarion Ledger, 8 December 2019, https://www.clarionledger.com/story/sports/college/ole-miss/2019/12/08/lane-kiffin-said-espn-interview-ole-miss-coach-rece-davis/4375910002/

Contact Nick Suss at 601-408-2674 or nsuss@gannett.com. Follow @nicksuss on Twitter.