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KNOXVILLE -- Mike Hamilton walked away from the first interview of an extensive, nationwide search thinking he might have found Tennessee's new football coach.

Lane Kiffin wanted the job, but he left with an unusual request for UT's athletic director.

"I told Mike, The last thing I want you to do is offer me this job right now. I don't know if that's what you want to do, but I don't want you to offer it to me. I want you to go out and interview every guy who's supposed to be the best in the world," Kiffin said.

"Go interview them all. What I want you to do is come back to me and say, 'I want you to be the head coach at the University of Tennessee. I know that you can do a better job than anybody else.'"

Sure enough, Hamilton's search ended right back where it started.

Kiffin, the former coach of the NFL's Oakland Raiders, was introduced as Tennessee's 21st head football coach during a press conference Monday afternoon at the Wolf-Kaplan Center inside Neyland Stadium.

He replaces Phillip Fulmer, who was fired Nov. 3 after leading the Volunteers to a national championship, two Southeastern Conference titles and a 152-52 record in 17 seasons.

Kiffin, 33, agreed to a six-year contract worth an average of $2.375 million, starting at $2 million in 2009 and escalating to $2.75 million in 2014.

"I'm rolling my sleeves up and going to work," said Kiffin, son of longtime NFL defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, who becomes the youngest coach at a Football Bowl Subdivision school and the third-youngest coach in school history.

"I'm not promising you how many wins we're going to have, how many championships. I can't do that. There are too many variables in that. But I can tell you this right now: No one is going to outwork us. No one is going to outwork me as a head coach, and no one is going to outwork our staff that we put together."

Hamilton offered the job to Kiffin on Friday after speaking with him for more than four hours in his initial interview more than two weeks ago in Atlanta. They met on consecutive days the following week in Dallas for a combined five-plus hours.

"It's easy to see, when you're around him for any short period of time, his level of energy, his level of focus and his passion for what I call competitive success," Hamilton said.

"I've seen that even more with the number of hours I've spent with him over the past week."

Kiffin is only the third coach in the last 32 years at Tennessee, which has played for the SEC championship five times in the last 12 years but is coming off its second losing season in four years.

"I think the bar here is extremely high, and I love it," Kiffin said. "If the bar wasn't there, I wouldn't want to be here."

Kiffin thanked Raiders owner Al Davis, who fired him four games into his second season for what Davis considered insubordination, for giving him his first opportunity to be a head coach. Kiffin said he benefited from learning to "deal with a completely dysfunctional franchise" in the NFL.

"You can't go to school and learn crisis management like that," he said.

Kiffin previously spent six years as an assistant coach under Pete Carroll at Southern California, where he served as offensive coordinator and recruiting coordinator in 2005 and 2006.

"In the end, I think Tennessee fans want someone who's going to embrace tradition and do it the right way, and who's going to win," Hamilton said. "That's why we hired Lane, because we believe he's the best person to do that."

Hamilton said he was pleased with the outcome of a search in which he interviewed more candidates that he had anticipated.

"It was extensive, probably more extensive than I originally thought when I got into the process," Hamilton said. "But we had such great interest, I said, 'You know, I've got this extra time, in some ways, so why not take the opportunity to visit with a number of people?'

"I think in the end that was beneficial because it let me weigh different things more readily."

Kiffin wasted no time endearing himself to his new team.

He said he met with players Sunday night for 41 minutes and thanked the outgoing members of UT's staff, including Fulmer and longtime defensive coordinator John Chavis.

Kiffin also vowed to improve UT's roster through recruiting and said he looked forward to "singing 'Rocky Top' all night long after we beat Florida next year," drawing applause from the hundreds of donors in attendance.

"That line was Mike's idea, by the way, all right, Urban?" Kiffin added, referring to Florida coach Urban Meyer.