The Forrest Gump of connections could be former USC quarterback Max Browne. He recently shared his experience from the night of Lane Kiffin’s infamous firing from the USC Trojans. It all took place after USC’s brutal 62-41 loss to Arizona State in Tempe.
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When the team boarded the plane back to Los Angeles, the players were entirely in the dark. Browne, who was sitting near the front of the plane, recalled the incident while explaining the events that unfolded that night.
“I was on that plane ride. I was on that tarmac,’ Max Browne said on the Atheletic Live on September 17. “We had just lost, and we were all, like, joking around and whatnot. You should not be doing this after you lose a game and Kiffin walks up; the head coach never walks up to the front of the plane.”
“He’s hanging in the back, and he locks eyes with me, and he glares at all of us. Why are you joking around after a loss? Then I, the little freshman, was all scared.
He was literally walking up to the front of the plane while we made eye contact.
to ask if he could meet with our athletic director. Well, little did he know he was about to get fired.”
Around 3:30, Browne received a mass text message for a team meeting early in the morning. The news broke early in the morning for the squad that Lane Kiffin had been fired.
Kiffin has his own memory of that day, which humorously clears up the biggest misconception about the event. He wasn’t actually left standing outside on the asphalt.
The team plane landed at a private terminal around 3:00 AM. Kiffin had already boarded the team bus to head back to campus. In his head, he was planning to sleep at the football facility to begin game planning for the next matchup. That’s when the news of his departure was announced to him. An assistant athletic director pulled him off the bus.
He remembers athletic director Pat Haden walking him into a small airport office terminal just off the tarmac. That’s where the actual 45-minute conversation took place.
After everything that went down, defensive line coach Ed Orgeron was named the interim head coach for the final eight games.
Coach O brought an infectious, gravel-voiced intensity that completely re-energised the roster. Orgeron appointed quarterback coach Clay Helton as the offensive coordinator and primary play-caller to spark a struggling offense.
Under Orgeron’s leadership, the Trojans went on a stellar 6-2 run, winning six of their next seven games. The highlight came on Nov. 16, when USC upset then-ranked Stanford 20-17 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Andre Heidari drilled a 47-yard field goal with 19 seconds remaining to seal the victory.
Despite winning over the locker room and going 6-2 as interim coach, guiding USC from a 3-2 start to a 9-4 regular-season record, Orgeron was passed over for the permanent head coaching job. USC instead hired Steve Sarkisian, and Orgeron resigned before the Las Vegas Bowl.
Browne has often reflected on how much Kiffin has changed since that 2013 firing. He noted that during their first team meeting in 2013, Kiffin strictly warned the roster about being incredibly careful and tight-lipped on social media. Browne joked that the modern version of Kiffin is the exact antithesis of that meeting, having successfully reinvented his career to become the sport’s ultimate social media “glow-up” and a highly dynamic head coach.