Lane Kiffin was doing yoga when 4-star recruit Tywone Malone picked Ole Miss
OXFORD, Miss. — Here's a setup for a joke that's never been told: What did the football coach miss while he was doing yoga?
In Lane Kiffin's case, the answer was the biggest recruiting commitment of his tenure as Ole Miss football coach.
Four-star defensive tackle Tywone Malone signed with Ole Miss on Wednesday. The 6-foot-4, 300-pound defensive tackle is the highest-rated signee in the Rebels' class, which ranks No. 18 nationally, according to the 247Sports Composite. He comes in as the No. 6 defensive tackle and No. 62 prospect in the country.
Malone kept the details of his commitment quiet. Even as Malone sat behind a table with six hats live on ESPN2, he hadn't notified Kiffin or the Ole Miss staff of his decision. Kiffin said co-defensive coordinator Chris Partridge told him he was "99% sure" Malone would pick Ole Miss.
As Malone thanked his family and coaches, the suspense grew for everyone watching the broadcast. Luckily for Kiffin, he wasn't one of those people.
"I actually couldn't find it on the computer," Kiffin said. "I thought it was a little bit later. So I actually was finishing up yoga and I came out of it and I called Partridge and I was like, 'Hey, I can't find this thing.' He goes, 'He's already coming.' So I guess it was good luck that I didn't actually see it."
The process of bringing Malone from Oradell, New Jersey, to Oxford in the middle of a pandemic required plenty of coordination. Kiffin said there were times where recruiting Zoom sessions with Malone had as many as 28 people on the call.
It wasn't just Kiffin and Partridge. It was defensive graduate assistant Marquise Watson. Toward the end it was new defensive line coach Randall Joyner. And there all along were Ole Miss baseball coaches Mike Bianco and Carl Lafferty, giving their own version of the recruiting spiel to Malone, who intends to play defensive tackle and first base for the Rebels.
Malone will join quarterback John Rhys Plumlee and running back Jerrion Ealy as Ole Miss players in other sports. Kiffin says he encourages that and thinks of Ole Miss as a place uniquely qualified to court such players. Not just because the baseball program is successful, but also because of the environment and attention paid to baseball at Ole Miss.
"We think it's great for the kids and great for the university," Kiffin said. "Usually you don't have 325-pounders who do it, but we happened to find one."
The four-star signee had hats from Texas A&M, Tennessee, Florida State and USC on the table alongside Ole Miss and his home-state Rutgers. He also had offers from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Oklahoma to name a few.
But Ole Miss felt it had a jump on Malone. Partridge has connections in New Jersey from his time as a high school coach there and his time recruiting the area at Michigan. Even Kiffin has history signing players from Malone's alma mater Bergen Catholic; Kiffin helped recruit All-America linebacker Brian Cushing to USC from Bergen more than 15 years ago.
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