University of Tennessee Police Department Capt. Keith Lambert said that campus officers drove Lane Kiffin home from the Neyland-Thompson Sports Center after he announced he was leaving the school. Although the crowd, estimated by police to be as large as 500 people at one point, wasn't too unruly, it did set fire to a tattered mattress and several UT T-shirts as it waited outside the sports complex for a chance to spot Kiffin after his press conference. "We thought it would be best if we just took him home in one of our cruisers," Lambert said. "Our big thing was trying to mitigate (the situation,) and try to get what the crowd was upset about away from the crowd." Knox County Sheriff Jimmy "J.J." Jones also confirmed that his office dispatched a deputy to Kiffin's home in a West Knox County gated community after the coach's wife, Layla Kiffin, called E-911 to report suspicious vehicles in the area. "We assured her that there would be somebody close," said Jones, who kept a deputy in a cruiser posted at the Kiffins' home overnight. The Kiffins flew on a private plane to Los Angeles on Wednesday morning.