Report: Tee Martin nixes Lane Kiffin to stay with Vols

Tennessee holds a special place in Tee Martin's heart and he's not ready to relinquish his opportunity of Jeremy Pruitt's coaching staff just yet.

Lane Kiffin has reportedly made a run at Martin and offered him the offensive coordinator position at Ole Miss, but the former Vols great turned him down to return to Tennessee for the 2020 season, sports radio host Jimmy Hyams reports.

Kiffin is in the process of filling out his first-year staff in Oxford and was looking to fulfill his play-caller vacancy with Martin, who called plays at USC before returning to the Vols this season as associate head coach and offensive assistant.

Jimmy Hyams
@JimmyHyams
Tennessee assistant Tee Martin has decided to stay at UT and not accept offensive coordinator offer from Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss, per a source.
8:14 AM - Jan 6, 2020
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Martin told the Knoxville Quarterback Club in September that an opportunity on Pruitt's staff was the only thing that would keep him out of temporary coaching retirement.

The conversations with Pruitt had already started in the spring and the Tennessee head coach, in the middle of his first offseason with the Vols, wasn’t sure yet which direction he would go, but Martin was being kept in the loop.

“And he called back and said we can make it happen,” Martin said. “Sure enough, we’re here today coaching and enjoying every bit of it. It was a weird emotional state when I took the job, because I didn’t know how I would feel.”

Martin, a two-time SEC champion and BCS national champion with the Vols, has interviewed for Tennessee's head coaching vacancy twice in the past.

“I don’t know if a lot of you guys know this or not,” Martin said, retracing his steps to a decade ago, “but when Coach Lane Kiffin had the job (in 2009), the first time I interviewed for a job here was with Jim Chaney at the coaching convention in Nashville.”

While incremental, Tennessee did improve this season offensively in several categories under first-year OC Jim Chaney and Martin's direction and ended the season on a six-game winning streak to finish 8-5.

SOURCE: Crawford, Brad. "Report: Tee Martin nixes Lane Kiffin to stay with Vols." GoVols247 - 247Sports.com, 6 January 2020, https://247sports.com/college/tennessee/Article/Johnson-explains-decision-to-leave-Vols-for-Florida-State-141631910

GoVols247 analyst Grant Ramey contributed to this report.