So Tennessee decided to fire Phil Fulmer toward the end of last season, apparently assuming the coaching shark tank that is the SEC East had passed him by. To replace him UT did what a lot of NFL and college teams seem to be doing: rather than trying to steal a “name” coach from an established school, they went for a young hotshot, namely Lane Kiffin, who had stunk it up with the Raiders, but hey, who hasn’t lately?
Kiffin was a top assistant under Pete Carroll at USC, where he earned a reputation as a good recruiter, able to charm and fire up good players. Tennessee obviously saw him as a guy who could recruit with the Sabans and Meyers of the world and kick start the Vols back into SEC relevance (I know, I know, they were in the SEC title game just two years ago, but that still seems like a weird dream).
What the Vols braintrust probably couldn’t have predicted was Kiffin’s becoming perhaps the conference’s number-one, most-hated target of the Vols’ biggest rivals so soon. Turns out Lane is quite the loudmouth, a guy who so far hasn’t been able to make his foot big enough that he can’t cram it into his mouth. Let’s have a list of Lane’s stupid soundbites!
1. First, Lane decided to make Urban Meyer take an interest in him. The morning after Signing Day, at a Vols booster breakfast, Kiffin told the crowd about WR recruit Nu’Keese Richardson that Meyer had “cheated” by calling the player while he was visiting UT. Problems with that statement: A) Calling a player while on a school visit is NOT an NCAA violation; B) Meyer didn’t know Richardson was on the visit; C) Kiffin just ensured that Tim Tebow will be throwing deep against the Vols in the fourth quarter with the Gators ahead by 56.
2. Why did Meyer not know Richardson was at UT? Because Kiffin told Richardson to LIE to UF coaches about UT’s interest. Note that Richardson was an oral commit to UF since spring 2008 and had never shown any inclination to change his mind. His own teammates and head coach at Pahokee were stunned when he put on a Vols cap at his signing ceremony.
3. About Pahokee, a school that has produced numerous NCAA and even NFL players, Kiffin told those same boosters this: “You take that hour drive up from south Florida, there ain’t a gas station that works. Nobody’s got enough money to even have shoes or a shirt on.” And also: ”[Richardson's aunts] didn’t [fax his letter of intent] at the school because they knew somebody at the school was going to screw it up. The fax machine wouldn’t work, or they would have changed signatures, all the things that go on in Pahokee now.” The Pahokee coach was outraged, and that town’s city council (!) actually formally scolded Kiffin. Considering how many great players come from the muck down there around the southern shores of Lake Okechobee, Kiffin has just closed a strong possible pipeline.
4. Kiffin “stole” Alabama’s top recruiter, Lance Thompson, by throwing some serious caysh his way (one positive you have to note about Kiffin is that he’s paying his assistants more than anybody in college–but, of course, one of them is his pops, Monte, the DC). Then Thompson and Kiffin crowed about how they had hurt Bama’s recruiting. So besides pissing off Meyer, who has already shown that he carries a grudge and will pay it back (right, Mark Richt?), Kiffin has now pissed off the Devil himself, Nick Satan. Better yet, Thompson bragged that UT would now “own” the fertile recruiting area of Memphis, but within a week Saban had gotten an oral commit for 2010 from consensus top-ten WR from, you guessed it, Memphis.
5. After falsely accusing Meyer of cheating to get Richardson, the Lord of Irony smote Kiffin by having him truly get hit with two secondary violations: first, it was discovered he had had recruits give a dummy press conference, and then he had players run onto the field at Neyland Stadium with fog machines running. Though minor, these are infractions regarding simulating game-day conditions, forbidden by the NCAA.
6. And then Kiffin got a third violation a couple days ago, when he mentioned stud RB Bryce Brown, who is waiting until March to sign (my guess is he’ll go to Oklahoma, not Miami, btw), which, of course, is forbidden.
You can make an argument that none of this matters. He’s certainly fired up the Volunteer nation, sparking comparisons to the way Steve Spurrier shook up other folks with his big mouth when he came in. But remember that Spurrier came in having unbelievably won an ACC title at Duke, giving him a bit of a pedigree as a college head coach. Kiffin has never even (head) coached a college game, and he’s made sure that his two main rivals will want even more badly to punish him. And keep in mind that at his hiring press conference, Kiffin told Vols fans he looks forward to singing “‘Rocky Top’ all night after beating the Gators at the Swamp.” Something tells me that Tebow and Meyer, notorious for using even perceived slights as motivation, will be reminding each other about that all summer. Thanks for making the SEC East even more exciting to look forward to, Lane!