In 2010, his first season at USC, Kiffin's Trojans team finished the season with an 8–5 record but were ineligible for post-season play due to the NCAA sanctions. After the NCAA issued a guideline allowing current USC juniors and seniors to automatically transfer from USC without having to sit out a year, several USC players left before the start of the 2010 season, including Malik Jackson and Byron Moore to Tennessee, Travon Patterson to Colorado, D.J. Shoemate to Connecticut, Uona Kaveinga to BYU, and Blake Ayles to Miami, among others. Seantrel Henderson, who had signed a letter of intent to USC, was granted a release by Kiffin and immediately enrolled at Miami. Both Kiffin and former head coach Pete Carroll publicly referred to this NCAA-transfer exception as "free agency" because it allowed current USC players to be targeted for transfer opportunities and granted them immediate eligibility at their transfer destination. USC played the 2010 season with just 71 scholarship players, some of whom were redshirt candidates who did not play, instead of the normal NCAA allowance of 85 scholarship players.