Lane Kiffin teases post-USC high school coaching career

Lane Kiffin’s got everything figured out if he gets fired at USC: he’s going into high school coaching, which well, yeah, sure.

Kiffin took a few moments to wonder if maybe his steep -- and drama-loaded -- rise to being head coach of USC maybe cost him some of his love of the game, per Ralph D. Russo of the AP:

“I did think the other day what it would be like to be a high school head coach or to be at a small school,” Kiffin said. “I thought about it the other day. The first time. I wonder if there’s something to that peace of mind. Maybe it’s something I can go back and do when I get older. I’m going to go coach high school. “It’s just the game. It’s the game in its realest sense and it’s fun. Working with the kids and not all this other stuff. You go back and have fun.”

Kiffin, blessed with pedigree and charisma, skipped a host of steps on the coaching development ladder. After two years as a graduate assistant at Fresno State and one at Colorado State, he’d go to the big leagues of coaching, first in the NFL, then at USC, then becoming the youngest head coach in NFL history. After getting fired there, he’d become the youngest head coach in BCS history. Now, he’s in charge at the program where he cut his coaching chops, never having really experienced many of the unglamorous stops most coaches go through.

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