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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYS

July 24, 2009

Lane Kiffin

HOOVER, ALABAMA

THE MODERATOR: Here to wrap up media days 2009, the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers, Lane Kiffin. Coach, welcome.
COACH KIFFIN: Thanks, guys. I'm surprised you guys stuck around. I thought Coach Spurrier gave you what you wanted, told you who he voted, for everybody would leave. I was even prepared, he stole the first five minutes of my speech. I had my SEC ballot right here. I was going to have him read it right here. Quarterback, what does that say?
THE MODERATOR: Tim Tebow.
COACH KIFFIN: By the way, I voted for 11 Florida Gators for first team. We can get rid of that.
It's been a very special seven months for us. I can't imagine it going much better than it has. Starting off, putting the staff together that we were able to, our athletic department, Mike Hamilton and everybody involved really gave us the resources to do that.
As we set out to put a staff together, I wanted to make sure we had two things. We did not hire anybody who was a great recruiter, but couldn't coach, or anybody who was a great coach, and couldn't recruit. In my opening press conference, I told our fan base, Bear with me, it's going to take a while to put this staff together. We're going to have to wait for guys to get done with their NFL season, go recruit guys.
At the time, I said I thought it was the best staff in America. Now that we've had a chance to work together, see them recruit, see them coach on offense and defense, and do everything they have, it's even better than what I could have imagined. I love what they're doing. I think the results are showing, to be able to put together a top 10 recruiting class.
Our last hire was a month before signing day. We technically weren't together as a full staff but one month before signing day. We signed. No. 1 player in America in Bryce Brown, speaks volumes for our program, volumes for our assistant coach, what they can do.
That led us into spring ball. It was an extremely competitive spring ball. 15 practices of guys hitting as much as we could, practicing as long as we could. We almost went over a couple times because we tried to stop practice in a competitive atmosphere. Goal line drill, third down drill. Our players were so competitive that whoever won, the offense or defense, the other one would challenge them. We'd extend practice, keep going back out there.
That was the first time I've ever been a part of that. I've been around some special players and special teams, but to see players extend practice, it was really neat for me to see, because it meant we were doing what I set out to do, which is create an environment that the players wanted to be in, create an environment when they get done from class at 12 or 1:00, they're going, I can't wait to get to practice because I know I'm going to get better, I know I'm going to get coached, I know it's going to be an energetic practice, one I want to be part of. That was really neat to see during spring practice.
After that we've gone into this next season of recruiting, which, obviously, I can't comment about individuals, I thought it's gotten off to a great start. As I look back, especially being here today, this is kind of the fourth quarter of the day, I've been through most of the stuff already today, there's so much attention, all the questions come back to things that you've said, Do you think that it's worked.
On the way down here, there was a Sports Illustrated article that I read. It reminded me of exactly what I knew, but I hope it reminded other people, how competitive this conference it is. It is so hard to recruit in this conference, especially because you're in a part of the country that as you study things, you go about it, kids do not want to leave their own state. Guys grow up a fan in Alabama, Florida, grow up in Louisiana wanting to go to LSU. You have to do something unique and special to get those guys to come to your place.
Unfortunately, in Tennessee, as much as we love our state, we do not have a lot of great high school players there. Those are the facts, those are the stats. This article pointed out the stuff we already researched when we took the job to develop a plan. The plan had to be we had to create national attention immediately. I don't think people give you four- or five-year plans any more, especially in this conference. None of you guys in here are going to say, If you're not winning in year two or three, let's give him a couple more years. That's not how it works, especially down here.
We couldn't wait till the season to win games, because when you win games, that's the easiest way to get recruits. We didn't have time to wait for that. We had to put Tennessee in the national media. Do I love every single thing I've done for my seven months? No, I haven't loved having to do it. But it needed to be done, in my opinion, for us to get to where we needed to be.
The article said, Tennessee football has been the most talked about football program in all of college football through the off-season. Think about that statement, guys. If you're a 17-year-old kid, all the way down to eighth grade, if you've seen Tennessee's logo more than any other school, and you've seen our staff talked about, our players talked about, we're creating interest, and it's shown.
We've had an unbelievable amount of unofficial visits throughout this summer. A lot of our coaches haven't been able to go on vacation because we've had so many kids and parents saying, Something special is going on at Tennessee right now. There's no way that these players turned from the great places they were going, two players going to the University of Florida, coming off a national championship, No. 1 player in the country going to Miami, one of the top players in LSU going to LSU. Those guys turned to come to Tennessee in such a short time, there must be something special going on.
The feedback has been unbelievable from players all throughout the country of guys wanting to come and see what's going on. Like I said before, I've not loved everything that I've done, not loved everything I've had to do, but it needed to be done, in my opinion, to be able to put us where we are today and for future down the road. Because those are the kids that are going to remember that. Those ninth graders are going to remember seeing Tennessee so much. Now we need to go win some games.
This is a very important transition right now to get to what we're here to do. This staff loves to coach ball. The most fun thing for me is to go to two-a-days, morning practice, one of your players screw up, hot route, safety adjustment, quarterback doesn't see it, you coach it up in between on the film session, you go to walk through, you go to individual, you do it, all of a sudden in the p.m. practice, the guy makes the play, he gets better. He gives you that smile. You know that you got him better. That's what we're really here to do.
We're extremely excited to get underway here in training camp. Unfortunately we've had a number of injuries here in the off-season. Three injuries to three of our top receivers. We look at that in a positive way. That gives a chance for our young guys, guys that were buried on the depth chart, a chance to come in and contribute right away and play. We won't get one of those guys back, he's gone for the year, in Rogers. The other two will probably come back. By the time we get rolling, maybe to Game 3 or Game 4, we may be a stronger receiver unit because of that.
So we're excited. We think we have a very unique first unit defense. We think they're going to be very special. I think we have a great defensive staff coaching them up. They have a special look about them in the huddle. Barring injuries, I think it will be a special group. I think we have a lot of work to do on offense. I think guys that cover us know that. We're excited about that. We're excited about taking that head on.
We got a great quarterback competition to look forward to. I'm really excited to see some of these freshmen, to throw them in, the receivers, especially these two tailbacks, throw them in the backfield with Hardesty, who is a great player.
You guys probably don't want questions. Last thing of the day. Flights to take off. No questions?

Q. Now that you're getting to the season, you said you didn't love everything you said or have done. Getting to the season, is it time to let the product do the talking for me and I'm going to tone down the bravado a bit? Do you anticipate now it's time to play the game and this is the product we have?
COACH KIFFIN: Well, it's not because of the timing of the games. That's not what it's about now, about it's not time to say something, now you have to back it up. That's not it at all. It's part of the plan. It's part of the timing of things. Now that we got out there, have this energy about our program nationally, that's what we needed to do.
So, yeah, does it tone down? Naturally it tones down because there's something to focus on.
What else were you going to focus on? There weren't any games being played. The only thing to focus on was what was going on in the off-season. Now there's real ball to focus on.
We're real excited about getting this season underway, looking forward to the opener. We have a ton of work to do. We're just excited to get to the first day of practice.

Q. Eric Berry is arguably your best athlete. Why not line him up at quarterback and take your chances?
COACH KIFFIN: A couple reasons. First thing, I think that's not fair to him. Eric most likely won't be back a year from now. So to take Eric, who is not -- remember, he's going into his third year, but it's not a third year of the same defense. This is the first year of this new defense for him to learn. If you take all that practice time away from Eric, who is a great leader for us, who is a great player for us, who is potentially a top-five pick in the NFL, you put him over there in the offense, he loses all that practice time at defense, you're over there trying to run some stuff with him at quarterback, number one, that's not fair to him. Number two, you're not developing your other guys.
This isn't just about today. We have to look for our future. We need to develop our other players at the positions they're supposed to be at. You hinder his development at defense, which is not fair to him, and you hinder the development of our offense as well.

Q. I'm talking about him playing defense, balance it out. If you're all about getting attention for Tennessee, you're going to lure more quarterbacks playing him there than maybe somebody else, if you believe he's the best athlete on the team.
COACH KIFFIN: What I'm saying is you are hindering his development. During practice, you put him over there at quarterback for those plays, you have to spend a lot of time in the meeting room with him, on the practice field with him, why he's not over there with Monte Kiffin working on his drops. He's gonna play multiple positions on defense for him. You're going to hinder his development over there.
It would be an interesting conversation were we going into our third year and he had our defense down pat, playing it for two years. Then I think it could possibly be a different conversation.

Q. You mentioned the three receivers that are injured. What does that mean for Nu'Keese Richardson?
COACH KIFFIN: He was going to get a great opportunity to play anyway. This gives him more of a chance to play. In the reports downstairs from him working out, he's had a great off-season. He's been there for probably five weeks now, I think. Has done well academically. Really been working hard down there. Gained some weight. We look for big things from Nu'Keese. Even if those guys were healthy, we were looking for that. This is more of an opportunity for him stepping up.

Q. Are you worried you maybe set him up a little bit with his highly publicized recruiting?
COACH KIFFIN: You have to know the right people to do that with. If you know Nu'Keese, his personality, just like Eric, there's a lot of players that you would not want to give a Heisman, promote for the Heisman going into their junior year because they couldn't handle it. Eric can handle that.
Nu'Keese and Bryce are two people, I talk about them more than any other freshmen, because of their personalities and their confidence, their demeanor, swagger, I think those two people can handle it. I'm not worried about having set those two guys up. I think it's good for them to have all the attention on them because they can handle it.

Q. Steve Spurrier said he actually did not fill out his ballot. Somebody did it for him. He just approved it. Did you actually fill yours out? If not, who did?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, because of not being as familiar with the conference, I had some of the guys around us help me, some guys that are in the office that have been around the conference more. They helped me fill it out. But I was obviously a big part of it.

Q. You mentioned there's no four- or five-year plan any more. Do you feel pressure to kind of win immediately because of that?
COACH KIFFIN: Well, I don't feel any pressure because we apply so much pressure ourselves. I think our staff is so competitive and our expectations are so high of us as coaches and of our players that I don't feel anybody adds any pressure to that.
But we know what conference we're in. We know what school we're at. That school, the people around us, expect us to win. They expect us to win a lot of games. And I love it. I love being a part of that. I would not want to be somewhere where the expectations are down because that's not who I am. I want to be around people that want to operate at the highest level and be in the most competitive conference and be at the top of it every single year.
I love that our fan base thinks that way.

Q. The commissioner made a point the other day talking about secondary violations, that the league takes them seriously. I wanted your reaction to that. Do you think coaches around the conference have gotten that message from the league?
COACH KIFFIN: I think we definitely have. I can only speak on my behalf. I would say this: we've had a number of violations and I don't think it's a crazy amount comparable to other schools. I want to make sure you guys understand this. Not one of the violations that occurred to us was something we planned, set out to say We're going to create a violation. I don't think any of the violations we had gained us an advantage in recruiting. We did not set out to do something on a specific plan of creating violations to gain an advantage.
We are under a great effort as a staff to make sure we don't have any more. Sometimes they happen. I think what happened to us a little bit, too, is unfortunately of our 10 coaches, nine assistants and myself, five of those coaches last year were in the NFL. So when you come back, we probably weren't as educated as some other schools on the little rules, how you interpret those. We did not do that on purpose at all. I can assure you that it's not our plan to continue that way.

Q. One of the sore spots for a lot of fans last year was the lack of use of Brandon Warren. Can you talk about how he's doing in the new offense, given all the injuries to the receivers?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, Brandon had a really good spring. He had been playing tight end the year before, kind of a hybrid tight end position last year. We moved him to receiver now. He's lost some weight. Really had a good spring out there. Had a good spring game, did a number of things. He could be one of those guys, because of injuries, that he even gets to play more. We're excited about him.

Q. What would you say to sexual assault victims who ask why you would recruit someone who was convicted of such a crime?
COACH KIFFIN: I think you have to look at the incident. It was a very unfortunate incident. It was something that happened, I believe, five years ago now. It's something that he learned from. It was something that he was involved in. I think if you researched it enough -- I'm not going to get into it in front of you guys, but if you research it enough, really knew the exact story of what happened from a number of sources, I think it's different than what was portrayed in the media.
But it's a very sensitive subject and one we took very serious. This was something we looked very long and hard at before we did it. This is not something we signed on signing day. This is somebody I knew well before signing day. It took months to figure this out. I think in most of these situations you would have to see a football coach or program fight for this player to get into the university. This was not that case at all.
Daniel Hood was accepted to the University of Tennessee having nothing to do with football and he was put on academic scholarship by the University of Tennessee having nothing to do with football. He could have come to the University of Tennessee, enrolled on academic scholarship even if he never played football. I think that's a powerful statement about them researching it, as well.

Q. Your dad coached a lot of great defensive players in his career. What is his assessment of Eric Berry's potential?
COACH KIFFIN: I think he said to the media the other day, he made a statement, I don't know how he couldn't be the first pick of the draft. I think that's a pretty powerful statement about Eric.
But he really has been tirelessly watching so much film from last year, my dad has. He continues to get so excited about using Eric in different ways. He's not had a safety over the years that he's been able to play at nickel. They asked me to compare Taylor Maze and Eric the other day. I said they're really different because Taylor isn't a guy you could play at nickel. A bigger safety that couldn't play guys man-to-man, receivers. There aren't very many guys like that. There aren't very many guys in the NFL like that.
To have Eric, a guy that could come down and play nickel as well as be a safety, I think NFL teams are going to fall in love with him.

Q. Is there anything in recruiting you'd like to see some of the rules improved, whether it's early signing period, spring recruiting, time that you have as coaches to get to know that the players you want to bring into your program, anything that comes to mind you'd like to see that could help you do your job better?
COACH KIFFIN: Well, the biggest thing for me, I wish, personally, is the head coach could go out in spring. I think we really suffer from that, especially because it's hard for players to get to our campus compared to some of the other schools in the SEC. They get more players to their campus because of their location. I don't get to go out and see the guys. In recruiting, what is missed so much is the evaluation process. There's three parts. There's the evaluation, then there's the recruiting. Once you evaluate who you want, then there's the recruiting to get them, then there's the development of them. Five star players, top classes, you look four years later, the team is not winning, because the development of 'em.
So when I can't get out, I can't really do the research for the evaluation near as well. I'd love to sit at jamborees in Florida all day long, be able to watch the guys warm up, to learn about them. So to take that away from the head coaches, I think we suffer a lot from it because I know I'd be out every minute of every day.

Q. Could you talk about how conducive you think your offense is to getting young guys on the field, how much of a priority that will be this year? Ed Orgeron's role in your program?
COACH KIFFIN: I think it excites players in high school. Goes back to Southern Cal. We had freshmen All-Americans at the skill position we were able to plug in right away. That's because we started coaching them the day we signed them. We started sending them DVDs, playbooks, until waiting till they got to us. Once we had them, we found out what could they do really well and make them do that great.
We don't try to make freshmen come in. We didn't try to make Reggie come in, or Mike Williams come in, or Lyndell come in. We found what could they do extremely well and let's focus on that, and then eventually as they get older do everything else.
It's a philosophy that we use to take a guy like Nu'Keese. What can he do great? He can do this, this, and this. Don't try to make him do everything. He'll never get really good at anything if you make him do that. So I think it's an approach that helps guys play right away, and I think it will pay off for us this year.
Secondly, with Ed Orgeron, he's extremely valuable to us because I really think that he's kind of the passion of our program, that our players and our coaches feed off of his energy. This is someone that is a tireless worker. Between him and Monte, they sleep at the office. I don't even know if they sleep there's so much. They're on different schedules. Ed is the morning person, so Ed's up at 4, has his three Red Bulls by 4:20. Monte is still asleep because he's up till 2:30.
Between the two of them, our players feel so much energy and passion from them. I can't imagine there's a better recruiter out there than Ed, if you go back and look back at guys that he's recruited over the years and developed -- once again, you go back to hiring recruiters and coaches, look at the defensive linemen, go all the way back to Miami, then USC, then all the players he recruited, all the great players that are at Ole Miss right now that he recruited there. Unbelievable job of evaluating the players, then also getting them there.

Q. You talked earlier about being able to put together such a great coaching staff. I think you have the highest paid group of assistants in the country. Talk about being able to do that and raising the bar, how much assistants are making these days, especially in the SEC.
COACH KIFFIN: Well, I'll probably take heat for this, but I really think you have to spend money to make money. When you go out, get those coaches, that's going to translate into recruiting, winning, ticket sales, your team doing better, I don't think you ever ask those questions again. The way I look at it, I go back to this. Does anybody ever write anymore how much they paid Nick Saban at Alabama?
When he was hired at Alabama, every article was I can't believe how much we paid Nick Saban at Alabama. Well, guess what, nobody writes about it any more because they win. So when we start winning, nobody is going to write about how much we pay our assistant coaches because, in turn, we're going to make a lot more money by them being there. I don't think it's a big deal.
And I took a lot less so we'd have money for them (smiling).

Q. Somebody who coached in the NFL, how do you think Tim Tebow's game will translate into the NFL and what kind of career you see him having?
COACH KIFFIN: I think I have a unique view on that. When Tim was in the high school, we recruited him at SC. I was the national recruiter. I would go down and see him. Went to his family's house, spent the day there. I should have known at that point we were in trouble because I did pull in and he had a Florida Gators mailbox right there as you pull into his farm right there. I should have known we weren't getting him at that point.
But to watch him practice, I was sitting in there with some other college coaches. One of the coaches said, I don't know his throwing motion, maybe he's a fullback or something. I look at the guy, Do you watch the film? Do you watch him? The guy is a great competitor. He wins every game he plays. He makes every throw. Is every throw a perfect spiral? Who cares. It's just like a home run hitter. Do you really care how he comes to the plate and his stance, how he swings? What are the results.
I think it's going to be the same thing. I think there's going to be a million articles written after Tim has a great year, and I would think with all the great players, they'll win another national championship, he'll win a Heisman. That wasn't a joke. I was serious about that. I really believe that. I think the same thing will be written about him.
Well, I don't know his throwing motion, can he play in the NFL, some people will pass on him in the draft in the NFL. He'll prove them all wrong, he'll go and win Super Bowls there.

Q. I know you said Eric Berry has a potential top-five pick. Do you feel that way about Tebow?
COACH KIFFIN: I don't know how he isn't. If you want to build a program, and you want a quarterback, you want a winner. Here is a guy who came in, all he's done in his whole career, no matter where he's been, he wins games, you know. He won the state championship in high school. Now he's winning national championships, winning three out of four national championships. What more do you want for a leader?
A guy that makes a statement after you lose a game by a point, We'll never lose again, and backs it up. I promise you, if they ever lose a game again, it won't be because of him. If I have a top-five pick in the NFL, that's the guy I want.

Q. With these calculated episodes to bring publicity to Tennessee, what kind of reception did you get in Destin when you met with the other coaches, specifically maybe Urban Meyer?
COACH KIFFIN: First of all, I think when you talk about these calculated risks to bring energy and attention to your program, I think that there is some negatives that come to that, some things you have to have your facts ready for. There was a recruit in my office. His mom was sitting on the couch. She said to me, Well, we really like everything about Tennessee. But another coach told us, why would you ever go to Tennessee, it's a renegade program. They're going to become the next Miami, that Miami used to be.
I sat there and I looked at her. I said, To me, if I'm evaluating a program, I want to know about facts, okay? What I've done is created this perception we're a renegade program, or that's what coaches use against us, let's talk facts, okay? We've been there for seven months. We've had one full semester of school, okay? A renegade program would never have the largest GPA jump in over four years for a football program in the school history, would not have the highest GPA in over four years. Over eight semesters, our football program had the highest GPA of any football program there. We've been there over seven months and had zero arrests. To me that speaks volume about discipline, what's going on in our program. I think we're as disciplined a program as there is in the whole country.
Back to Urban Meyer. He was very nice in the meetings.

Q. Could you talk about some of the guys in the previous coaching staff who didn't get a lot of playing time, Chris Donald at linebacker, trying to take advantage of starting with a clean slate with a new coaching staff.
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, I think when coaching staff changes, it benefits players sometimes. The first meeting we had with our players, I told them, I don't care what you've done before, good, bad, indifferent. I don't care if you're a two-star or five-star recruit. None of that matters. We're going to play the best players, no matter what year you are, no matter where you come from. A lot of guys, that's been great for. Because it's natural in the coaching staff, guys get buried after a couple years on a staff for whatever reason. They don't really have a chance. So the change gives them that.
We've seen a number of guys who may be people that cover us aren't as familiar with because they've been buried on depth charts, step up. I think we'll see it again. We have to release a depth chart, but I promise you, when you read our depth chart right now, it means nothing. We just have to do that.
How do I know, over these last six weeks of working out, when I'm not allowed to watch them, how do I know which guys have passed guys up? We don't really have a depth chart. Eric Berry is a starter. Outside of that, we have 21 jobs open. It will be a really interesting fall camp.

Q. You've talked about, and Lance has talked, about building a fence around Memphis and owning Memphis. I know you can't talk specifics, but with Keiwone Malone committed to Alabama, Macklin committed to LSU, did you know it would be that hard?
COACH KIFFIN: Well, I can't talk individually on them. Before you make a statement about whether we're winning or losing recruits, I think you need to know who we were really going after. That's really as far as I can go on that answer.
I think wait till signing day happens. Then I think go back and evaluate, are we getting the players we really went after.

Q. How did the other SEC coaches receive you in Destin? When you flew down there to hire Coach Orgeron, did you think you needed to do that? Could you not have gotten him on the phone?
COACH KIFFIN: First, the SEC meetings. I thought the reception was fine. I think that you have a group of 12 people that understand that each job is different, okay? I'm hired different than all those 11 coaches, okay? I have a different athletic director than they do. I have a different president than they do. I have different expectations upon me that this is the way they want something done. So that may be different than their AD wants it done.
They may be in a totally different program. They may be in a program where they have a hundred great players 50 miles from their campus. That's pretty easy to do. You don't have to do some of the things I have to do. I think it's very different. I think that coaches understand that and respect that we all have very high-profile jobs we all have to do in different ways.
The second part about Orgeron, any time in recruiting, just like recruiting players face-to-face is the most valuable thing you can do, I really probably had 300, 400 phone conversations with him before that, even things on why I was here and he wasn't here and he didn't know if he was coming, things on recruiting around the conference, different things.
He still knew a lot of personnel, because he's only been out for a year. He still knew a lot of the high school kids, kids for us to go after. I was in a lot of conversation with him. He was really wavering, Sean Payton is a great coach, great to work for, LSU was getting in it. So much family from Louisiana. LSU was throwing a ton of money at him. We went in person to get him.
My dad and myself got on a plane, went down to Destin, made him sign it. We weren't trusting him just to give us his word.

Q. Eddie Gran joined your staff with a sterling reputation for recruiting in South Florida. What is your recruiting strategy down there as far as competing with the Gators?
COACH KIFFIN: Well, first of all, Eddie Gran, he has absolutely blown me away as a coach and a recruiter. I knew some about him. He'd come highly recommended. Will Muschamp called me. Eddie wasn't on the top of my list, I didn't know anything about him when I was putting together a staff. I kept hearing about him in recruiting. Will Muschamp called me and told my, I promise you, I don't call about coaches ever. If I got an SEC head job, the first guy I would hire is Eddie Gran on either side of the ball, because he's a great man, a great recruiter and great coach.
I still thank him to this day for doing that. He is. He's unbelievable. What he did with Nu'Keese. I told the story before. It is phenomenal to have one month before signing day and have a kid committed to the powerful Florida Gators off of a national championship and to be a receiver to go there in the state of Florida and just to get him to come on a trip, I was shocked.
Then he gets him on a trip and he gets him to sign I think speaks volumes of him. He's gonna do a great job down there for us.
It's obviously a very hard place for us to recruit because of the great tradition of Florida State, Florida and Miami, because of having to travel to us. So it makes it really difficult. There will be a billboard going up there in the next month that I think you'll be excited to see, that will give you something to write about that will help us, too.

Q. A billboard?
COACH KIFFIN: Uh-huh. I'm not going to give you any more than that. Got to give you something to look forward to.

Q. You received some flack about your comments about Pahokee. How did you patch up that situation, if you have? Are you allowed back in the school?
COACH KIFFIN: Yes, we are. The Pahokee comments, Urban Meyer comments, are at the exact same event. After this right here, I'm going to move on from this, okay, after today, because it's time to get to football. I'm going to explain it to you in this setting.
The setting that it was in was Tennessee. I've said the statement before. I know when y'all watched it on TV, it looks completely different. It looks like I went in front of the national media and made these statements about Urban and Florida. It was a group of Tennessee boosters the morning after signing day of our Tennessee boosters at an energetic breakfast. I made some -- over the course of the two hours I was up there or something, I made two statements, one about Pahokee energizing the crowd, one about Urban, that if you were there, anybody I talked to that was there, including people in our athletic department at the time, thought nothing of it because they were laughing and joking. It was just amongst our people.
Well, like anything nowadays, there was one camera there. The one camera there happened to pick it up and it became a national story. Looks like I went in front of a setting like this and made those statements.
I've apologized to the commissioner. I've apologized to Urban, to Jeremy. I don't know what else to do on that situation. I think we've moved forward.
As you noticed from my comments, all the time from the minute I got hired, I have great respect for Florida, what they've done there. I would think Florida is not worried one bit about us. We're 5-7, they're the powerful Gators. We're just trying to play in the same conference as them.

Q. You've mentioned Ed Orgeron's success on recruiting. He has a big hand in what Ole Miss has now. You worked with him at Southern Cal. He's not the most easy guy to understand sometimes when he gets talking. What is his success in being such a good recruiter? What's the basis for how good he is as a recruiter?
COACH KIFFIN: I think it's the relentless effort, the relationships that he develops with everybody around the recruit, the coach, the parents, the aunts, the uncles. He's just so relentless. He doesn't take no for an answer.
Marsalis Teague was a receiver DB that was committed to Florida from Tennessee. So when we got there, we got on him, he wasn't committed yet. Ed wasn't there yet. We couldn't get him. He committed to Florida. He said, I really appreciate everything, but I'm going to go to Florida. Ed had just gotten there. Ed got on the phone and told him, You're going to sign with Tennessee. Go ahead and announce that you're committing, but you'll sign here.
He came into our staff meeting. This shows you his confidence. He put it on the board in front of the whole staff. We got some young coaches that didn't know Ed, aren't used to this confidence. He put on the board, I guarantee every single one of you Marsalis Teague will sign with the University of Tennessee on signing day. That shows you the confidence.
From that day, he did everything he could do to make sure he signed and turned him away from Florida. He's relentless the way he goes about it. Anywhere he's been, the recruitment and development of the players has been phenomenal.

Q. In Louisiana, back in signing day, there was a lot of speculation about Janzen Jackson, seemingly an 11th hour decision to sign with Tennessee. People wondering if his dad, Lance, who is a secondary coach, was promised a job somewhere down the line in the program, things like that. Can you relate how he came to sign with Tennessee and what, if any, role Ed Orgeron played in that?
COACH KIFFIN: There's no truth to that. Lance Guidry is his father. He coaches at Miami of Ohio now. There's no truth he was promised a job or something. Anybody who said that, that's just -- that, to me, is a typical reason why when people recruit so well, all of a sudden people want to accuse them that they're doing something wrong or accuse them of cheating because they got beat. There's nothing to that.
Janzen Jackson was a great player that -- he had been committed to LSU, I think, for 11 straight months. We just went down there, brought him on a trip. We showed him. I think the biggest reason he came to us was not me or Ed Orgeron or Frank Wilson, I think it was Monte Kiffin. He wants to coach someday when he's done playing, Janzen does. As you guys know, that's not easy to do.
Five-star players don't leave the state of Louisiana. I think the stat is over seven years, there's two five-star players not go to LSU from the state of Louisiana. One was Joe McKnight came to us at SC, and Janzen was the second.
What he did, when he came, I think he fell in love with my dad. I think he saw how good he can be in that system, how much football he can learn underneath my father. Then also how that's going to translate into coaching, because of the coaching tree of guys that have learned from him. I think it was a combination of those two things why he decided to switch.

Q. Can you talk about how your NFL experience might translate down to the collegiate level. Anything that doesn't translate down so well?
COACH KIFFIN: Yeah, I think what translates the best, when you've been in the NFL, I think is that you understand the evaluation process that the NFL uses with being in the draft rooms, being at the combine, being in all those interviews, that you understand that you can help your kids in that.
So we prepare our kids already. A lot of the off-season training that we do, we're training them for the exact drills they do at the combine because it's kind of a give-and-take. Our players give so much to us. We want to give back to them. We give back to them by preparing them for the NFL. So we even get to a point whereas they get ready, we prepare them for those interviews.
What happens is they all hire agents, the agents try to get them ready in a couple months. Why not spend three or four years getting ready for it? We really try to help our kids, almost like a minor league system, prepare for that day for their draft day.
So I don't think, you know, there's a whole lot of other stuff that you bring down. I think that's a very powerful thing that you bring down.
The obvious one is the X's and O's. The NFL is the highest level of X's and O's. I don't think anybody can disagree with that. That's what you do all year long there. You don't go on the road recruiting. You do football.
Whenever you bring people down, I think usually as you study things, I was getting ready to interview for the Tennessee job, I was looking at the USA Today on the airplane when I was flying to interview, I was looking at the conferences, and Pete Carroll and USC was first in the PAC-10, Nick Saban and Alabama was first in the SEC, and Butch Davis was first in North Carolina. I don't think that's a coincidence that those are all NFL head coaches because they bring those X's and O's down. The question always is, can that NFL coach come down and recruit, can he relate to players. That's always the question. But I don't ever think it's an X and O question. I think you see it the other way. You see college guys to the NFL and they struggle X- and O-wise when they get there.

Q. I'm sure you had a smile when some people wondered, how does a 69-year-old guy going to connect with 20-year-old kids. Eric Berry said the energy your dad shows has blown them away. Have you gotten him to slow down yet?
COACH KIFFIN: No, we really haven't. He is 69. But he says it all the time, 69 going on 49. That he was actually born on a leap year, so he really only has a birthday every four years. He has all these excuses why he's so young. It's true. He's so passionate about the sport, about coaching. I finally told a story the other day, I kicked him out of the office last week. We've been on vacation for three weeks. I see him in the office every single day. I finally kick him out, sent him to Tampa. My mom is calling me, telling me, will you please send him on vacation. I haven't seen him.
So I send him to Tampa. I think he's on vacation. Then I find out that Tampa Bay Bucs set up an office for him, this is a true story. He's going in every single day in the morning, not coming home still night. My mom calls, says, He ain't been here one time. He's not here for breakfast, he's not here till after dinner. He goes into the Bucs. They setup this office, and they streamline all the film from SEC film for all the opponents. They streamline them all into the Tampa facility. He was still working down there every day.
My point of the story is that shows the passion of the guy. Doesn't matter about age. There's some 25-year-olds that can't coach because they're too lazy, don't have enough energy, then there's 69-year-olds that can coach because they have great energy.

Q. What was the deal with the turnover with Mark Smith as your strength coach and David Reaves handling your quarterbacks? What do you see him bringing to that position?
COACH KIFFIN: Mark Smith was hired as our strength coach, was with us for about six months. Mark did a very good job. He established a lot of discipline in our program. I really liked some of the things he did.
Anything in our program, everything I say to you guys, every decision that I make, is to make us better on a championship level. I felt that we got to a point that we were plateauing a little bit. I felt that I had a chance to improve us in that area, just like I'll improve us in any area, if you go to switch players at some point, you know, on a depth chart during the season.
So we had a chance to hire Aaron Ausmus. I felt our program was not progressing to the championship level that it should. I feel when we recruit players, when you come here, we're gonna give you the highest level of coaching on offenses and defenses. We have the best recruiting system there is as far as evaluation. I didn't feel we were getting that at that point with our strength program. I didn't think it was fair to our players. It's my job to make hard decisions. That was a very hard decision.
But you do that for your players and everybody else around.
David Reaves, quarterbacks. I oversee our quarterbacks. Spend a lot of time with our quarterbacks. We also have Jim Chaney who developed Drew Brees and Kyle Orton at Purdue. David does a lot of our individual work with our quarterbacks. He's still young. He's 30 years old. Come from a great coach in Coach Spurrier. We'll continue to develop him.

Q. The reconciliation between John Majors in Tennessee appears to be complete. He's got some speaking engagements and appearances at UT functioning coming up. What has been your role in that?
COACH KIFFIN: Well, I think it was a lot. I tried to get Coach Majors back around. I think he told me it was the first time he'd walked in the facility in 14 years, not been to a practice facility in 14 years. He's a huge part of our tradition. Coach Majors is not just a great coach, you know, some of the younger people don't know, he was a runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, was a great player. To have him around, have him as just a huge brick of Tennessee football has been extremely important to me.
He came to our practice. It was so neat to see him at practice. He was so energized by the way our coaches coached, the energy we had, the intensity of our staff that he came off the field and said, You know, even though I've not been to Tennessee practices for years, he goes around the country, goes to practices, and he goes, That's the best organized, energetic practice I've seen in, I think he said, 17 years, or something like that. That's a powerful statement from a legend, from a Hall of Famer like that.
I brought him up to our staff and I put him at the head chair and I asked him, Will you tell that to our staff? For me to relay that, it's not near as powerful as him relaying it.
We had a pretty busy day. So I was thinking he was going to relay that message about what a great job they did in about a minute or two, get to move on. He spent about 45 minutes. He told us how good we were. But then he also, as a great coach would do, he went through each guy and told them what they could do better. He told our linebacker coach how he could make his drills better, our DB coach drill. I could see how he's a great coach. He sat at our one practice and had something for each of our coaches to get better at.
THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.

End of FastScripts

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