» Kiffin now under contract at FAU through 2027 season,
Coach cites ‘on-field success,’ stadium as incentives to stay.
Lane Kiffin agreed to a 10-year contract to remain as coach of the Florida Atlantic football team through 2027.
ESPN.com’s Chris Low first reported the deal, just hours before the Owls played Akron on Tuesday night in the Boca Raton Bowl at FAU Stadium.
Kiffin, who signed a fiveyear, $4.5 million contract last December, told The Palm Beach Post on Monday that the sides were close to a new deal. Agent Jimmy Sexton arrived in Florida on Monday night to finalize the contract.
Details of the contract were not immediately available.
“We are grateful that the president and university are this excited about what we are doing here at FAU and into the future, although our focus remains completely on the team and this historic season finale tonight on ESPN,” Kiffin told ESPN, which owns the Boca Raton Bowl and started the day off by promoting an “all-access” interview with Kiffin that was scheduled to air on Tuesday night’s “SportsCenter.”
The Boca Raton Bowl was the only college football game played Tuesday.
In a radio interview with ESPN’s Paul Finebaum on Tuesday afternoon, Kiffin explained some of his rationale on deciding to stay longterm.
“We got a great place to live in Boca, we got a great place to recruit to — (we had) the No. 1 recruiting class (in C-USA) and we were only here for a month,” Kiffin said. “We’ve got the on-field success and a great stadium.”
In an interview that also saw him praise Owls All-American sophomore running back Devin Singletary (American Heritage), Kiffin added: “There’s a lot of reasons you would stay here that people probably wouldn’t think (you would).”
FAU set a program record with 10 wins on the FBS level in Kiffin’s first season and won its first Conference USA championship, going undefeated in conference play. FAU was coming off three consecutive 3-9 seasons under Charlie Partridge. Kiffin, with many of the same players from last season playing significant roles, quickly turned the Owls into C-USA’s dominant team.
There was plenty of media speculation about how long Kiffin’s stay in Boca Raton would be if he had success this season, and that speculation intensified as the Owls’ victory total mounted and so many high-profile coaching positions opened up during the season. There was even lobbying by a contingent of Tennessee fans to bring Kiffin back to the school he abandoned after one season to take the USC job in 2010. But all those positions were filled without Kiffin getting one.
Kiffin was infamously fired by then-USC Athletic Director Pat Haden on the tarmac after a road game midway through the 2013 season, despite posting a 28-15 record with a program that had been hit hard by NCAA sanctions because of the Reggie Bush scandal.
Kiffin spent the 2014-16 seasons as Alabama’s offensive coordinator. He helped Alabama win 40 of 43 games, three SEC championships and reach two College Football Playoff championship games.
After Kiffin accepted the FAU job last December and coached in the CFP semifinal game, he was relieved of his coordinator duties by Alabama coach Nick Saban leading up to the title game, which Alabama lost to Clemson.