Chris Kiffin, Lane's Brother, Is Leaving Ole Miss And Heading Back To The Cleveland Browns

Ole Miss co-defensive coordinator Chris Kiffin, who is the brother of head coach Lane Kiffin, is leaving Oxford after one month and returning to the NFL. Kiffin had spent the previous two seasons working as the defensive line coach for the Cleveland Browns under head coach Kevin Stefanski. Along with serving as the co-DC, Kiffin was set to coach linebackers at Ole Miss.

Chris Low was first to report the news.

When Lane Kiffin met with the media last Tuesday to discuss his signing class, he had nothing but great things to say about his brother returning to Oxford.

"I think he's been a lot of places," Kiffin said. "And ran our defense at FAU when we were really good that year. He then went to the NFL since then, learned at a lot of different places, had really good players, so that makes it easy to recruit to. Having been here before when they were really good, I think is really good for him recruiting for players to know, 'Hey, OK, he coached these guys who were here before. I'm glad for that.'"

Chris Kiffin was the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach under his brother Lane at FAU in 2017. But Chris is no stranger to Ole Miss. He was the defensive line coach and the recruiting coordinator when Hugh Freeze was in charge, from 2012-2016, before joining his brother at FAU.

It will be interesting to see what Lane Kiffin decides to do with the position. His brother was supposed to coach alongside Chris Partridge and run the defense. Maybe Kiffin will just stick with Partridge at the DC spot, or he may bring in someone else to help run that side of the ball.