Volunteers’ Kiffin is youngest coach

The former Raiders head coach replaces Phil Fulmer at Tennessee.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Even though Tennessee’s new coach is the youngest one leading a major program, Lane Kiffin has been around football for almost all of his 33 years.

The former coach of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders and son of longtime NFL defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, is five months younger than the previous youngest coach in the Bowl Subdivision, Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald.

“During our process, Lane Kiffin stood out,” athletic director Mike Hamilton said. “He has great football bloodlines and has been part of a strong football tradition since birth.”

Kiffin remembers being surrounded as a child by chalkboards scrawled with defensive plays and spending weekends in pregame meetings with his dad’s teams.

“The experience has been unbelievable and then to combine that with still being young enough to be able to relate to recruits and be able to manage them and handle them, I think is very valuable,” Kiffin said Monday when he was introduced at Tennessee.

He’s the Volunteers’ 21st coach but only the third in the last 32 years. His selection came after “the first national search for a football coach in University of Tennessee history,” Hamilton said.

He took over the Volunteers two days after Phillip Fulmer’s 17-season tenure ended with a win over Kentucky and has a six-year contract worth $2 million in 2009 with the chance for bonuses.

“I’m extremely honored to follow him,” Kiffin said. “I’m not trying to be him. All I’m trying to do is carry on some of the things he’s done.”

Kiffin was the youngest coach in the NFL’s modern history when hired to lead the Oakland Raiders in January 2007 at age 31 after spending two seasons as Southern California’s recruiting and offensive coordinator.

It’s not the first time Tennessee has hired a youthful coach — Fulmer had no previous head coaching experience and the Vols’ revered Gen. Robert Neyland was 33 when he was hired.

Kiffin’s success with recruiting during a six-year stint at Southern California under the tutelage of Pete Carroll was a huge draw for Hamilton. One criticism of Fulmer was that the quality of his recruiting classes in recent years had been inconsistent.

Before he announced on Nov. 3 that he was being pushed out, Fulmer was building a class that was ranked at the time in the top 10. Since then several top recruits decommitted or said they planned to look at other colleges before signing with the Vols.