Lane Kiffin Nearly Talked Himself Out Of Being Fired At USC, AD Pulled Ruthless Move On Plane

It's been 10 years since USC fired Lane Kiffin, and new details show the true chaos of the situation.

Kiffin was fired September 13, 2013 following Arizona State destroying the Trojans and the team falling to 3-2. With the team's downward momentum continuing, a decision to make a change was made, he would never coach another USC game.

ESPN published an oral history to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the infamous airport firing, and it sounds even more ruthless and crazy than the public knew.

When USC AD Pat Haden made the decision to fire Kiffin, he allegedly fired off a text while sitting in the first class that they needed to speak and then went to sleep. Yes, Haden allegedly decided to catch a little shut eye after texting Kiffin, who was in the back of the plane, he needed to talk to him.

USC fired Lane Kiffin 10 years ago. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

"I sat in the back with the players. Pat Haden sat up front in first class. I got a message saying Pat wants to see you after . I'm certainly not thinking that I'm getting fired. I remember walking up there because I was going to ask him, 'Hey, can we just talk on the plane?' I walked up and Pat was sleeping, and his wife, Cindy, looked at me and started crying," Kiffin told ESPN about how the situation unfolded.

Deciding to fire a coach and then taking a quick nap while on the same plane and leaving your wife to cry is absolutely savage. That's cold-blooded. That's like a mafia style hit. Order it to get done and then get back to life like nothing happened.

New details surface about Lane Kiffin's firing at USC. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Lane Kiffin nearly talked his way out of being fired.

Once Haden had Kiffin pulled off the bus after landing and brought into an office - not the tarmac as people think - the decision to fire the USC coach was relayed to him.

How did Lane Kiffin take the news? He nearly managed to convince Haden to give him the rest of the season. The current Ole Miss coach was apparently so convincing Haden even made a call to see what he could do.

"I even said to him, 'OK, what's the use of changing now? Even if you want to fire me, let me just finish with these players and coach the rest of the year.' Actually, I think I had him turned to not firing me because I'm reminding him we don't have 30 scholarship players. He walks out. And he's like, 'Yeah, I get it, maybe we jumped the gun on this.' So he walks out and makes a call, and he comes back in and says, 'No, I can't take this back,'" Kiffin explains how the interaction between him and Haden went in the office.

He was fired, then perhaps not fired and then fired for sure. It's straight out of Michael Scott needing to fire someone on Halloween.

It's already been a decade.

It might be hard to believe it's already been 10 years since Lane Kiffin was fired in humiliating fashion by USC, but that's the case. It's been 10 very quick years.

Since then, he was a coordinator at Alabama, the head coach at FAU and is now the head coach at Ole Miss. It was a bit of a bumpy road back to the top of the coaching world, but he made it.

It's just incredible how everything played out. Pat Haden allegedly made the decision to fire him, and went to sleep. Again, is this guy a guy who works in sports or a mafia kingpin. The man just ended a guy's career at USC and took a nap afterwards.

Then, he almost gets talked out of it like he's Michael Scott. You couldn't make up this kind of chaos if you tried.

Lane Kiffin finished his career at USC with a 28-15 record. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

Kiffin left the Trojans with a 28-15 record and perhaps one of the wildest firings in the history of college football. It wasn't fun, but it certainly was infamous.