For 32 years, two men roamed the sidelines at Neyland Stadium as Tennessee football’s head coach.
Both Johnny Majors and Phillip Fulmer were Volunteer State natives who played football for the Big Orange. They combined to win five SEC Championships and in 1998 Fulmer led the Vols to their lone National Championship in the modern era.
For over three decades, the two Tennesseans were the face of the state’s flagship university. But that all changed in 2008 when Athletic Director Mike Hamilton forced Fulmer to resign and tabbed Lane Kiffin as the program’s 20th head coach.
A brash 34-year old who had spent the previous eight years in California, Kiffin came to Knoxville with fire and confidence. He “colored outside the lines” in recruiting, accused Urban Meyer of cheating and could deliver one liners tit for tat with Steve Spurrier.
Vol fans and players alike loved it all. Until 15 years ago tonight, when Kiffin spurned Tennessee for Southern Cal after just one season, inciting bitterness, rage and riots.
Rocky Top Insider talked to 13 Tennessee players, fans, staffers and media members who were on campus that night to tell the story of Jan. 12, 2010— one of the craziest nights in Tennessee football history.
To understand why the night went the way it did, you first have to understand Kiffin’s lone season in Knoxville.
The Vols went 7-6 (4-4 SEC) and capped off the season by losing to Virginia Tech in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. Tennessee played reigning National Champion Florida competitively, lost on a blocked field goal to eventual National Champion Alabama and improved over the course of the season.
Nick Reveiz, Junior Linebacker: “A lot of ups-and-downs but really more ups. We won some games that people didn’t think we were going to win.”
Prentiss Waggner, Redshirt Freshman Cornerback: “That 2009 season, that was one of the most fun seasons I ever had during my time up there in Knoxville. The coaching staff was second to none. That staff Lane put together with his dad Monte and all those guys. That 2009 season was real, real fun. I think all the guys would say that.”
Jimmy Hyams, Radio Host at the Sports Animal: “I would say it showed a lot of promise. The record wasn’t that good at 7-6 but … they were a pretty well coached team, I thought. There was optimism that he could get the thing turned around and I do think they played well for the most part.”
Chris Low, ESPN: “Part entertaining, part chaotic.. … Coming off what was a really tough end of Fulmer’s career and a losing season, I always thought Lane squeezed a ton out of that team and was close to being a nine win football team or better.”
The season itself provided optimism but it was off the field where Kiffin most made a name for himself. And he couldn’t have been any more different than his even keeled predecessor.
Chris Walker, Junior Defensive End: “It was a culture shock because you go from a staff with Coach Fulmer, a staff that had been together for a long time and a bunch of family guys who had children that were our age … and really cared about Tennessee because they had been there for a long time. Then you go to Coach Kiff’s staff who were a bunch of dudes that I think a lot of them weren’t married, or acted like they weren’t, and just didn’t know much about Tennessee.”
Reveiz: “Phillip Fulmer was kind of synonymous with Tennessee football. I think Coach Kiffin and the younger staff injected some life that probably needed to happen.”
Low: “His name popped up in a rap song that year. Was it Lil Wayne?* … There was just a lot about him that resonated with 17 and 18-year old kids.”
Wes Brown, Senior Defensive Tackle: “Things were done differently. Was everybody bending the rules? Absolutely. You can’t tell me that people weren’t pressing the issue.”
Marlon Walls, Freshman Defensive End: “You have your big dogs in the conference and here comes Lane Kiffin who is going to do it his way. That was stirring the pot a lot. Of course as a player, you love the hell out of it.”
Low: “He beat Georgia that year by a ton and said after the game, ‘we’re never gonna lose to this team again as long as I’m here.’ They (fans) loved that about him. … Lane was just loosey goosey. Young, brash, gave the players all sorts of freedom and they played that way.”
Brent Hubbs, Volquest: “It was something every day. There was a rumor or a story. You chased something every day. Just because of where he was at his point in life. Not grasping the south. Not grasping the fact that Tennessee fans hung on every single thing he did. It was a long year. It was a profitable and successful year work wise but it would have been real hard to cover him at that pace for a long period of time.”
* “Smoke weed, talk shit like Lane Kiffin” -Lil Wayne in his 2009 song Banned.
On the morning of Saturday, Jan. 9, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that the Seattle Seahawks were hiring Southern Cal’s Pete Carroll as their newest head coach. Kiffin spent six seasons as a Carroll assistant at USC where the Trojans were highly successful and won the 2004 National Championship.
But after a failed tenure as the Oakland Raiders head coach and just one year as a college head coach, would USC seriously consider Kiffin?
Bill Shory, WBIR News Director: “There’s always like a possible candidates article that comes out and Kiffin showed up on several of those. … Names show up on those lists that aren’t feasible and I kind of thought Kiffin was one of them.”
Low: “I think he was always on their list. I don’t know where he was but having coached there, having coached under Carroll. He’d been an NFL head coach. … Someone told me when Carroll announced his resignation that ‘you need to watch Lane’ even though he had only been there for one year. I wasn’t shocked to be honest with you. I thought he was going to be right in the middle of it.”
Hyams: “Yes. There was that thought. I know that they went after a number of other candidates before they went after Kiffin.”
Hubbs: “It was one of those deals where if enough people told them no then they were going to talk to him.”
The NCAA was investigating USC at the time and the Trojans had begun to decline in Carroll’s final seasons. That combination made the job less attractive. Oregon State’s Mike Riley, Washington’s Steve Sarkisian, the Tennessee Titans’ Jeff Fisher and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Jack Del Rio all reportedly either turned down the job or told USC they weren’t interested, making Kiffin a more viable candidate.
But would Kiffin leave Tennessee after just one season? There were differing opinions from those in Knoxville and around the program.
Erin Exum, Tennessee Student: “No. Definitely not.”
Brown: “I look at the University of Tennessee, in my eyes, there’s not a bigger job. … When you see that news come across initially, never thought it was possible.”
Max Parrott, Tennessee Assistant Director of Equipment and Apparel: “If you spent five minutes with him, you knew ‘SC was his dream job.”
Walls: “We knew he was a California kid. The SEC is a little different for him. We always knew it was a possibility he could end up leaving and going to that job.”
Walker: “When he first got to Tennessee, on every TV that we had it was all USC stuff. Highlights of Reggie Bush and those guys. I think I went to him and was like, ‘hey man, I know you were really successful there, but you’re not there anymore. We don’t want that stuff on our TVs.’
“That was when the two of us got to have a really cool relationship. … I think he wanted us to know who he was and what he was about. But we didn’t really care. We were like, you’re our coach. We’re going to ride with you regardless.”
Low: “That was his school, man. That was his place. LA guy. Had a lot of success there. Loved Pete Carroll. I knew, even though Monte (Kiffin) always said he never should have left … I knew when they called it would be an easy decision for him.”
Hubbs: “The reality is if you got turned down by two or three people you were just going to go offer it to someone that was going to say yes and clearly he was going to say yes.”
Walker: “I think I was with my mom and we were watching TV and I think it said on the bottom of the ESPN ticker ‘Jack Del Rio turns down USC job.’ I looked at my mom and said, ‘Lane is going to USC.’”
As evening turned to night on Tuesday, Jan. 12, Low broke the news that Kiffin was leaving Tennessee for USC. It was a seminal moment for all involved.
Low: “I probably got the call around 6 o’clock my time (eastern time). … I checked with one other person before I reported it and I knew it was good. I reported it and no one at Tennessee really said anything. USC didn’t release anything.”
Ja’Wuan James, Early Enrollee Offensive Tackle: “I remember being in a dorm room and me, Jacques (Smith) and Matt (Milton) were playing a game. I didn’t even know I had missed a couple calls in general. I just didn’t have my phone next to me. … I had missed calls from Coach Kiffin. … We turned the game off and turned the TV and it was on TV, a rumor that he’s leaving. I try to call him back. He didn’t answer.”
Parrott: “I was at my sister’s house. She had just had twins. I was there when my phone started blowing up. People just started calling me from everywhere asking what’s going on? What’s going on? I said, ‘I don’t know.’ I went into her den and looked at the TV and it was scrolling on the bottom of Channel 10 news that there was going to be a press conference and that Coach Kiffin was probably going to Southern Cal. I got in my car and drove back to campus.”
Walls: “I was actually in Gibbs Hall, at my dorm room. I think I was with a couple of my guys and … (it) went across the ticker at the bottom of the deal that Lane Kiffin was accepting the job at USC and we were all like, ‘what the hell? What’s going on?’ And then we get a text, and this is probably about 9 something at night if I recall, and we get a text about a team meeting right after that.”
Reveiz: “I just remember the chain of events was going out to eat somewhere on the strip that night. I think we were watching some college basketball and we get a text that says, ‘hey, we have a team meeting’ and it breaks on the bottom line of ESPN, that Coach Kiffin is leaving and (then) just complete chaos.”
Shory: “I was actually eating dinner with our assistant news director … He and I went to (Mr.) Gatti’s (Pizza) up in Halls. We’re sitting there enjoying the pizza buffet and we get a call from Kris Budden who was on campus at the time, and she does sideline reporting now. Kris calls and says, ‘we just heard this Kiffin thing is real.’ … Alright, I guess we’ve eaten all the pizza we’re going to for tonight.”
Mark Packer, Freelance Reporter For WVLT: “Rick Russo calls me and says, ‘hey, you’re not going to believe this.’ So I kind of ran over to campus. Had a camera meet me over there and we didn’t really have a plan.”
Hubbs: “I’m sitting at my house, playing Chutes and Ladders with my kid who is five. I can’t remember if my daughter was with my wife or already in bed because she was only like a year and a half old. And my wife had run to Kohl’s or Target, one of the two, and got a phone call that said he had taken the job. Chris Low hit it across the ticker on ESPN. I posted, simply on my phone, on the message board ‘guys, it’s true.’ That was the post. My wife walked in, I had my bag packed. Here’s our children and I’m going to campus. Then, obviously, all hell broke loose for 24 hours.”
Anger was the immediate and near-universal reaction from Tennessee’s fanbase. But as players made their way to the Neyland-Thompson Sports Complex, emotions varied.
Walls: “I would probably say, you’re upset but at the same time I was a freshman on that team. I was getting some snaps but I wasn’t like some big time player right away. … But those older guys were pissed off. That was the part that was a little different. Those cats were pissed off.”
Brown: “For me, I had five years invested. We completely bought into what he was telling us. So for me personally, I was pissed. Tennessee means a whole lot to me. I want to see it succeed. That’s how I’ve been since I was a kid. I was mad because everything he wanted to instill in us, we bought in. For it to turn around and end in 13-14 months, that didn’t sit right with me.”
Reveiz: “As a player, shock. Why would he do this? I think everybody was pleased with the direction the program was moving. Or at least I was. But even now coaching college football you understand that everyone is in different shoes and different situations. … As a player, just a lot of shock.”
Waggner: “I didn’t have many emotions about it. I was a freshman at the time. I was just looking forward to whoever the next coach was. I know a lot of the offensive guys, they were pretty emotional about it.”
Walker: “I knew that was what he needed to do. The timing of it sucked, the way that it happened sucked but at the same time, I can’t be mad at someone for chasing their dream.”
While some players understood why Kiffin would leave, the team meeting where he announced his exit turned toxic quickly.
Parrott: “The mood in the building was mad. The players were mad.”
Walls: “I’ll never forget like Gerald Williams standing up and was like, ‘dog, we have already seen it on ESPN. Come on, man. What we doing?’ Basically like, don’t put something in front of my face. Just tell us what it is. … People were emotional and pissed off.”
Reveiz: “There was some chaos. I can’t remember everyone that was yelling but there was some blurting out random questions while he’s trying to talk. It wasn’t respectful.”
James: “Guys were screaming. Seniors stood up and talked and were like, ‘how are you doing this to us?’ I give Coach Kiffin credit, he heard them out.”
Walls: “Those cats were cutting him off in the meeting. He couldn’t even talk. Some of them were like, ‘go ahead and get your ass up out of here and on the road. Go on and go to California.’ So he end up like walking out. He had like a bad look on his face like, alright I guess I just need to go on and leave.”
Walker: “I think there was a moment in the team meeting where I stood up in front of everyone and said, ‘this is not a question and answer. Let the man say what he wants to say and let him get on his way.’”
Players interrupting Kiffin was only the second most interesting thing that happened at the team meeting. Defensive line coach Ed Orgeron was reaching out to Tennessee’s six early enrollees, most notably the five-star James, trying to recruit them to USC.
James: “He’s calling me 10-15 times and Coach Kiffin is in front of us and I’m like do I answer the phone? This is a team meeting. … I finally answered the phone— Coach O keeps calling me. I answered it and he’s like, ‘hey man, Lane tried to call you earlier. We tried to warn you about this. This is this man’s dream job. He’s from out there. Everything we told you stays true. You can come. We can have you on a plane tomorrow, private jet tomorrow. We’ll get you to California. You can enroll there.’”
Walls: “I want to say Ja’Wuan James was sitting behind me and was like, ‘man, Orgeron is calling me right now.’ And Chris Walker snatched the phone and put it on speaker and I’ll never forget Orgeron was like, ‘DO NOT GO TO CLASS TOMORROW. DO NOT GO TO CLASS. You’re going to come to USC.’”
James: “School hadn’t officially started. I came a couple days early but school started that next day. He was just like, ‘don’t go to class tomorrow’ and I’m like okay. But so much is happening in my mind. I’m 17. I graduated early. Everything is happening so fast and I’m just like I’m going to trust what Coach O is saying to me because that’s why I came here, off of the strength of them.
“I’m sitting there and Marlon Walls and Chris Walker happened to be sitting in front of me and they heard his voice and they turned around and were like, ‘who the fuck are you talking to on the phone?’ Granted, they’re emotional but they’re yelling at Ed through the phone and he’s like, ‘you got to call me back.’”
Walker: “Ja’Wuan James came up and brought his phone to me and it was Coach O. I took his phone and told Coach O respectfully, ‘he’s here. He’s not coming there. Don’t call his phone anymore.’ Maybe a little bit more firm than that.”
Brown: “Coach O was extremely good to me. … I won’t sit here and degrade the man because he was good to me, but that is bush league, in my opinion. You don’t come in and try to instill the values of what you want your program to be set for and then up and leave and then try to tear it down on the way out. To me, that’s wrong.”
For the media covering Tennessee, Orgeron calling early enrollees already on campus and telling them not to go to class the next day was the story of the night besides Kiffin’s departure.
Hubbs: “The biggest thing was telling the midterm enrollees not to come to class and then Tennessee trying to get the cell phones turned off. From a news side standpoint, that was a story. The comments about ‘screw Kiffin or blank this or he’s not one of us. He’s a liar.’ All those things, that was just a bunch of kids angry. And I understand. Their world had been turned upside down twice in a year’s time. But the news story of him literally telling people not to go to class— that was unlike anything we had ever seen.”
Low: “I actually heard that that night from players. There were some players out there and the players were pissed, man. … They found out from talking to some of these recruits or among themselves that Orgeron is calling around and telling people not to report. Not everybody but maybe the ones they wanted to come with them to ‘SC. Don’t report to class. I heard that that night because I think I probably wrote it the next day.”
The situation at Tennessee was tenuous for the early enrollees. Everything was in flux just days after they arrived on campus and before their first day of class.
James: “I think they (coaches) felt bad in the sense of, I guess owed a little bit to me because they got me to de-commit from Alabama. I committed to Alabama my junior year and all the other schools kind of cooled off of recruiting but when they got that job at Tennessee, man, they were going after people recruiting-wise. Ed was full throttle.”
Walker: “That was when you started to see the reality of college athletics and the business and the game and somewhat of the vile lifestyle that goes with it. … These dudes were convinced to come and play at Tennessee and then they were getting called by the people that convinced them to come to Tennessee to go to another school that was thousands of miles away from where they wanted to be.”
James: “We’re just sitting there, five kids, looking around like what the heck is going on. … We’re 16, 17-year olds at the time like not knowing what to do.”
Waggner: “Back in those times, I think the kids were more attached to the coaches than they were to the school. I can kind of get why Coach O did that.”
James’ dad and uncle picked him up the next morning and he returned to his Georgia home. Six days later, he re-enrolled at Tennessee. James gives an abundance of credit to offensive coordinator Jim Chaney, the lone holdover from Kiffin to Derek Dooley’s staff. James went on to be the 19th pick in the 2014 NFL Draft and played nine seasons in the NFL.
All six early enrollees —James, Jacques Smith, Matt Milton, Tyler Bray, Corey Miller and Ted Meline— stuck with Tennessee instead of following Kiffin and Orgeron to USC.
James: “Even though it didn’t work out with them (Kiffin’s staff), everything they did say still happened and they still continued to check on me and my family throughout the four years and out of school. … I could never say anything negative about them.”
The levels of understanding towards Lane Kiffin leaving and opinions on whether Orgeron was in the right to reach out to the early enrollees varied. However, everyone in and around the Tennessee football program admired the way the late Monte Kiffin, Lane’s father and defensive coordinator, conducted himself from the time he arrived in Knoxville to the time he left.
Walker: “One of the other things that I remember is how hurt Monte was to leave. Monte was unbelievable. He had a very cool way of connecting with us and we loved playing football for Monte Kiffin. … He told us straight up, ‘I love it here and I don’t want to leave here. If it wasn’t for my kid, I wouldn’t leave.’ I remember that very vividly because he said it with tears in his eyes and he hugged Nick (Reveiz) and I both and that just spoke to the type of man that he was and he really did love Knoxville. He loved the people, he loved the school.”
Walls: “He broke it down to us. He said, ‘hey guys, I love this place, but that’s my son. And my son is telling me he wants me to go on with him. That’s my son and one day you’ll understand that when you start having kids. When your kid needs you, you got to go.’ We just respected the fact that he came at it the way he did and didn’t try to BS us. He just kept it real.”
Waggner: “It was genuine. You could tell, especially as 17, 18-year old kids. You could tell who truly cares about your well being and you as a person. I can’t think of one kid on that defensive side of the ball that disapproved of Monte Kiffin. … He was just a pleasure to be around.”
Brown: “I will sing Coach Monte’s praises. From what I’ve been told, he stayed in his office that night and the next morning made his rounds and thanked everybody and tried to make amends. Tried to be a man about it. To me, that’s not surprising. Monte was always everybody’s favorite. Because he was genuine. He was real. … I believe in my heart that he was a fine man.”
Reveiz: “He was someone I really respected from that staff and enjoyed playing for. In fact, he was one of my favorite coaches I ever had when I played at Tennessee. I had a lot of good coaches when I was at Tennessee but he was one of the best.”
Hubbs: “I sat on a bench and talked to some athletic department officials and I’ll never forget, God rest his soul, Monte Kiffin called an athletic department official I was talking to and he was having trouble getting his computer to turn on because he wanted to watch film at like 2:30 in the morning. It’s over and it was one of the more bizarre— he was bored so he decided he would just watch some film and he couldn’t get the computer to work.”
Orgeron calling early enrollees and telling them not to go to class the next day wasn’t the only out of the norm protocol for a departing head coach that occurred that night. As the team meeting ended, Kiffin made his way to a different part of the Neyland-Thompson Sports Complex for a press conference.
Hubbs: “Who leaves in the middle of the night? Who has a press conference on campus (you’re leaving)?”
Shory: “Most of the time coaches just leave. They don’t do a farewell news conference. The fact that he would come out and say something actually is to his credit.”
Hyams: “Kiffin wanted to have a press conference because he thought that was the right thing to do. (Tennessee football Sports Information Director) Bud Ford did not want him to have a press conference. He wanted for him to just get up and leave and take off.”
Low: “I had not been able to reach him. So I didn’t know what he was going to say. I really didn’t. But you get in there and find out Lane is coming to talk and he wants to sort of break down why he’s making this decision.”
Holding a press conference to announce he was leaving was peculiar enough, but it was the ground rules of the press conference that led to conflict. Kiffin wanted to make a statement off camera and then another statement on camera but did not plan on answering questions.
Bill Shory, WBIR News Director: “There’s a little more context to it. We had been engaged in kind of a back-and-forth with UT for a while (over streaming press conferences).
“(WBIR Sports Reporter) Kris (Budden) is like, ‘they’re telling us we can’t turn our cameras on.’ And I’m like, what? The streaming thing was one thing but they’re saying you can’t record it? And she’s like, ‘yeah they’re saying we can’t record’ and I’m really coming down there now. It was a slightly different issue than what we had been arguing about, but it was basically the issue of them telling us what we could and couldn’t do with coverage which was an issue.”
Low: “People weren’t going to turn the cameras off when he talked and they were going to keep them on and Bud Ford got in the middle of it and said, ‘this is what he wants to do and has asked you guys not to do this. He’ll talk about it but he just doesn’t want cameras on.’ They continue to fight and media fought with each other and they were screaming out things.”
Packer: “I’ve never been the guy in the media that was batten down the hatches, let’s go crucify the guy and get what we want to get. I’ve always felt like he had his reasons for why he was leaving. I felt like if he wanted to just have a couple of minutes for us to just have a conversation, I felt like it was a respectful thing to do.”
Shory: “I think the dynamic that you had in the room … is there is such a strong relationship between the people who are covering the team (as sports journalists) … and anybody who doesn’t work in sports and is more oriented towards news doesn’t have that sort of collegial relationship with Bud or whoever the SID is. But really people who work in straight news don’t have that collegial relationship with anybody. You’re just kind of less deferential by default. That is what kind of inflamed it.”
Packer: “His (Shory’s) whole thing was he was going to plant his flag on journalistic integrity, or at least what he thought was journalistic integrity. … I just disagreed with that. I, in no uncertain terms, told him I disagreed with it and he was going to screw over everybody who wanted to at least hear what Kiffin had to say, which is kind of what happened.”
Shory: “I think one of the most important things that happens in that video is when Bud says, ‘you know you’re in our building?’ And that’s it. That’s the whole thing in a nutshell. It’s that he felt like they— the athletic department, not the university, the athletic department— owned that building. That they operated as a corporation would. And you can see how he would feel that way because that’s sort of how people treat them. But you see in the video, I respond, ‘Bud, technically it’s our building.’ … That, to me, was the stand. This is a public entity. And it is a public property. And there is public interest at play here. Therefore we as journalists need to stand up for that.”
*Bud Ford told RTI that he advised Kiffin not to hold a press conference in Knoxville that night but declined further comment.
Lines were drawn and arguments erupted. Shory was not going to agree to an off camera portion of the press conference. On the phone, WATE news director Jamie Foster backed Shory. The majority of the rest of the assembled media disagreed, wanting to consent to Kiffin’s terms to gather the most information possible. The scene turned toxic.
The majority of the argument was captured in this YouTube video.
Hubbs: “That thing just became venomous. … (Volquest’s John) Brice and I were both in there and he was seated in a chair and I was standing in the back where TV cameras were. I just walked by him and said, ‘I’m going out. I’m going to the street’ and you handle everything in here.”
Hyams: “A majority of the media was pissed off at the TV guy (Shory) for his insistence. We didn’t know what Kiffin was going to say but he was nice enough to meet with us so we thought let’s hear what he’s got to say. Getting something is better than nothing.”
Low: “Probably not one of the media’s finest moments around here. Instead of just trying to find a way to serve everyone in there and to get what they wanted, instead it turned into a free for all.”
Kiffin made a 59 second statement on camera where he thanked Tennessee for its support and noted that it was a difficult decision to make. He, nor Tennessee, ever explained why he wanted to speak off the record or why he wasn’t going to answer questions.
Low: “He knew what a circus it was because I think he had been waiting outside for everything to get squared away. I just remember as he walked in I was just sort of sitting there and I looked at him and he looked at me and both of us just kind of shook our head. He read his statement and was gone.”
Packer: “I really think he wanted to just say, ‘hey guys, I want to explain to everybody before we start why I would do this. And it would only be for one job. It would only be for USC.’”
Shory: “Somebody theorized that he thought if it wasn’t on video it wouldn’t get to recruits. … He did not want to see recruits wallowing in video of him speaking as coach of UT. I mean, that makes sense. I don’t blame him for having that feeling, but it wasn’t something we could go along with.”
Low: “The reason he didn’t want to do everything on camera, and I understand this, is he didn’t want to trump the USC press conference the next day. He didn’t want his first comments about being the USC head football coach coming from a press conference at Tennessee the night before. His first on camera appearance. He said that wouldn’t be right and that USC didn’t want that.”
The video of the argument between Shory, Ford and the rest of the media circulated on YouTube the following day. The Society of Professional Journalists awarded Shory an Ethics in Journalism Award for his stand.
As chaotic as things were inside the athletic complex, it paled in comparison to the bedlam that had erupted outside the north entrance to the facility on Johnny Majors Boulevard.
Reveiz: “I just remember walking out the second floor of the Neyland-Thompson Sports Complex, going out the front doors and there’s people starting to gather outside. I’m like, oh my goodness. What is going on here? I end up leaving because I didn’t want to be a part of it.”
Parrott: “I thought, I’m going to get the heck out of here. I’m just going to go home and wait and see. I got in my truck and was going to go back down the highway to go down Johnny Majors Drive in between Stokely and the football complex. There was a UT police officer standing there and he goes ‘I wouldn’t drive down there right now.’ I go, ‘why not?’ He goes, ‘they’re going to think you’re sneaking him out of here and they’re going to bust every window you got in your truck.’ I just immediately put it in reverse and backed up the car.”
Hubbs: “You had some obviously inebriated people. You had some football players that started partaking as well.”
Low: “There are players running around yelling, who had obviously had a few pops somewhere on the strip probably. There’s mostly students, some fans, but mostly students running around.”
James: “It was like a movie. … I don’t know how many people were out there but it was hundreds.”
Walls: “It was like a mob, almost like a riot.”
Exum: “It was like a mini riot. People were definitely out and pissed and screaming.”
Packer: “It was more like a fraternity party gone wild.”
Parrott: “I have no idea where they got it, somebody lit a mattress on fire … so I go back inside and get a fire extinguisher and come back out and I’m putting it out.”
Low: “I walk up and there’s Max Parrott. … I walk up beside him and he’s got that fire extinguisher trying to put it out and he looks up at me and doesn’t say anything and just shakes his head and then puts his head back down and tries to put the fire out.”
Parrott: “About that time, a Knoxville city fire truck comes around the corner and says we’ll take care of this.”
People, including players, gathered outside the football facility for hours finding all sorts of ways to kill time while waiting for Kiffin to leave.
Exum: “I think everyone had that emotional reaction to it. We felt like we were all in this together and all emotional in this together.”
Walls: “I’m a freshman. So my take’s a little different at that time than what it is now. At that time, I’m flirting with girls. I’m trying to see who is out here and I’m not really pissed off. I’m more just like this is crazy. … Yeah, ‘I’m sad right now. Let me get your number.’ It was a little different being a freshman for sure.”
Hubbs: “Tennessee fans had gotten hosed and they were hot.”
Hyams: “I think there was a chant of ‘we want Kiffin.’ They definitely wanted a piece of Kiffin. That was an angry group. They were. They wouldn’t have been mad if it was, like, Jeremy Pruitt. They liked Kiffin. … Then he bailed on them. They were very pissed off. I heard a lot of cussing and swearing at Kiffin’s name that night.”
Walls: “I remember my boy Chris Walker, standing in the middle of that thing and just like, ‘this is Tennessee.’ … And everyone kind of cheering him on and chanting him on.”
Walker: “They were literally worried about him being able to get out from where he was at because of all the people that were around. If there was a riot that could be on a college campus, it was very close.”
Walls: “That was crazy. Literally beating on car doors and trying to stop cars. Any car that pulled out of the complex they were trying to stop it (wondering if it was Lane).”
Low: “Finally they brought him out in a SUV. A blacked out SUV to get him out of there. … They got him out without people really knowing what vehicle he was in. That was that.”
And just like that, Kiffin was gone. USC introduced him as its 23rd head coach in program history on Wednesday, Jan. 13. They fired him less than four years later on a tarmac in Los Angeles after a loss at Arizona State. Tennessee hired Derek Dooley to replace Kiffin and fired him three years later after a disastrous 16-21 tenure.
The Vols floundered in the college football desert for over a decade after Kiffin’s departure before hiring Josh Heupel in 2021. Heupel exits his fourth year at Tennessee with a 37-15 record and a pair of 10-win seasons. Kiffin has similarly found success after his failed time at USC. After stops at Alabama (offensive coordinator) and Florida Atlantic, Kiffin landed back in the SEC as a head coach at Ole Miss. The Rebels are 44-18 in Kiffin’s five years as head coach with a trio of 10-win seasons.
But the question remains, how would things have gone for Kiffin in Knoxville if he never bolted for Southern Cal on that January night 15 years ago?
Walls: “(We) Would have won some SEC Championships. We just might have had to give some of them back. We probably would have had to give some back. But we would have won some because the dude was a master recruiter.”
Brown: “I believe we’d have been competitive. But do I think, looking back on it, that Lane was ready for a job that big at that age? I would lean towards probably not.”
Waggner: “If Lane was still the coach, I think we would have had some of the best recruiting classes throughout those next 2-3 years and we would have had a shot at the SEC East, man. And the whole entire SEC at that point.”
Walker: “I think we would have been back to where we were supposed to be. He was recruiting that way. He was coaching that way.”
Hyams: “I think they would have been good. I have questions about them being great. He committed a lot of secondary violations with the NCAA. I think that was going to be an issue. … If you took the Kiffin that is at Ole Miss— Tennessee would have succeeded at a very very high level.”
Low: “I think they would have gotten back in the SEC Championship game and I think they would have won one. I do. I think Tennessee was still a big brand at that time. It was over the next 10 years that they fell over the face of the Earth, for the most part. … They were going to be able to NIL it as well as anybody before NIL was legal and he was also one of those coaches that had the kind of cred with recruits.”
Hubbs: “They probably would have gotten in trouble with recruiting with the way things were going but they would have had a chance to win. … They would have won football games. Would they have won titles? I don’t know all of that.”
Tennessee had no shortage of dysfunction over the ensuing decade-plus including another on campus protest in 2017 when fans successfully blocked the hire of Greg Schiano as the university’s football coach. But nothing that’s happened at Tennessee, if not the entire country, in the 21st century quite compares to the mayhem that occurred on Jan. 12, 2010.
Hubbs: “It was a true all-nighter. It was unlike anything I had ever covered before and probably will ever cover again.”
Waggner: “The chaos was way more entertaining so to say than what actually happened. We’ve seen coaches leave but we haven’t seen the chaos that’s happened like it happened in Knoxville that night.”
James: “That’s how passionate Tennessee fans are. I got to see that on my first day of school. It was super high. Beat (No. 1) Kansas. Oh my gosh, Bruce Pearl is going crazy. The whole campus is going crazy to two days later people going crazy for a negative thing. At the end of the day, I felt like I got to see that passion up front early on.”
Low: “Kind of fitting because it was pretty chaotic off the field for Tennessee that season and fittingly the night that he left was equally chaotic. Maybe even more so. … I think the only one that comes close from a Tennessee perspective is the night Jerry Green told the fans they could go to Kmart if they didn’t want to come to the games.”
Walls: “It was crazy and I guess the rest of my time at Tennessee, you start to realize like that was a wild year because that is not the way college football is supposed to go and most people don’t ever experience that. … When I’m talking about my time at the University of Tennessee, we didn’t win a whole lot of games but we had a hell of a time. We got a story that nobody else has.”
Parrott: “People say I need to write a book and I say, ‘if I wrote a book they would read that chapter and say I made all that up. There’s no way that would happen. There’s no way.’ It was just a crazy, crazy night in early January.”
One Response
Nice job, Ryan! Very nice!