Well, let's see

by BPH, San Diego, Wednesday, March 03, 2010, 13:34 (5942 days ago) @ Greg

The new guy, Baxter, has been at Fresno State since 1997, which means he overlapped with Kiffin when he was finishing as a player and just getting into coaching. McNair has been at USC since 2004, which means that he and Kiffin coached together. Orgeron, obviously, has been with Lane at USC and Tennessee. Monte used to change Lane's diapers, which is a pretty strong connection. Barry was a protege of Monte's with the Bucs before a disastrous stint as the Lions' DC. Cregg and Garza were at Tennessee with Lane last season, and Cregg was also with him on the Raiders' staff. Morton is a holdover with no apparent connection otherwise, and I'm not aware of any connection between Helton and any other staff member.

I think an argument could be made for either scenario: that Kiffin intentionally eschewed "all-star" assistants to find coaches that he had chemistry with, or that he intended to hire a bunch of big-time names but simply couldn't convince them to come. I do find it funny, though, to hear USC fans who bitched and moaned about a coach like Jeremy Bates (whom Carroll thought enough of to hire as his OC in Seattle) try to spin an assistant from Arkansas State as an impressive hire.