When he's not trolling Tennessee fans on Twitter, Lane Kiffin is leading a really good Florida Atlantic team. In his first season at Florida Atlantic, Kiffin has taken a program that was 3-9 the previous three seasons to a 7-3 start with a 6-0 mark in Conference USA play. The Owls are winning their conference games by an average of 21.7 points and a win away from clinching their first C-USA East championship, which would guarantee a rematch against a North Texas team that FAU trounced 69-31 in October.
Of course, in this business that type of success only goes to fuel speculation of when he's going to leave.
Kiffin makes $950,000 as Florida Atlantic's head coach, which is great by C-USA standards but significantly less than he could earn on the open market. In a year when three SEC jobs are already open and three more could easily join them, there's going to be a market for a 42-year-old with two runs as a Power 5 head coach, a tremendously successful run as an SEC offensive coordinator and now a successful re-boot in Boca Raton.
But Kiffin went on ESPNU Radio on Friday morning and said he expects to be at Florida Atlantic next season.
"You are not going to get Coach Speak here. When I say I'm happy here, that's what every coach says. But I really am. It's a very unique situation: A) we have a great team, B) a ton of them come back, almost the whole team comes back. And we love living here. There's a family element that's awesome. My dad's here. My brother's a coordinator. Mom's here. My brother's four kids. We've got a president that wants football to win, came from Clemson and envisions this place being like Clemson some day."
Don't be fooled by all the rumors...@Lane_Kiffin says he's staying at @FAU_Footballpic.twitter.com/1an0dOq92N
— ESPNU Radio on SXM (@ESPNUonSiriusXM) November 17, 2017
And there you have it. Lane is on the record.