ARIZONA, USA — Kliff Kingsbury is heading back to school.
12Sports can confirm that the former Arizona Cardinals head coach is expected to join Lincoln Riley's staff at USC to work with the QBs.
The NFL Network first broke the story, reporting Kingsbury will be a senior offensive analyst and get to coach potential #1 pick Caleb Williams.
Kingsbury has a long history of working with top-level college quarterbacks. The 43-year-old helped develop NCAA record-setting QB Case Keenum at Houston, Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel at Texans A&M and future NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech.
Kingsbury was fired by the Cardinals in January, just one year after signing a five-year contract extension. He was tasked with taking the team and QB Kyler Murray to the next level. While we saw glimpses of greatness, Kingsbury’s 4-year run in Arizona was a disappointment.
His teams struggled with accountability, discipline, injuries and off-the-field issues. His last season saw the team finish with a 4-13 record. Kingsbury finished with an overall 28-37-1 record and one playoff appearance. After being fired, Kliff took a trip to Thailand and interviewed for the Houston Texas offensive coordinator job.
There’s some irony in this. Kingsbury often joked with us in the media that he’d never go back to coaching in college. Telling The Pat McAfee Show in 2021 that he wants to avoid college recruiting at all costs.
“I tell everybody and I’m not making this up, I would do anything before I went back to that,” Kingsbury said. “Like I would do any job. It’s full time now with the social media and you’re either tweeting, calling, facetiming and there’s like this constant anxiety, because if you’re not doing it, the university down the street is. It just never goes away. (In the NFL), when you’re done with the football, you’re done, you go live your life. College, it just never goes away.”
Welcome back to college football, coach. Kingsbury returns to Southern California. His first stint there lasted 35 days.
USC hired Kingsbury as their offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach ten days after Texas Tech fired him in 2018.
He left weeks later for the Cardinals job. This stint at USC will likely be longer and come with less stress.
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