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Person: Kiffin 'era' marked by big talk, few wins
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Writing a pile-on piece on Lane Kiffin is too easy, like laughing at a Tiger Woods joke or booing the Yankees.
What exactly did Kiffin accomplish in his 14 months in Knoxville?
Besides giving Tennessee's compliance office extra work and proving he could keep the score close against the SEC's top teams, not a whole lot.
Kiffin went 7-6 in his only season on Rocky Top, which equates to about one win for every NCAA rule he broke. Now he's off to Southern Cal, which many observers believe is about to get hammered by the NCAA for various and sundry violations dating to Reggie Bush's time with the Trojans.
Seems like a perfect fit.
Kiffin managed to make enemies with South Carolina fans and gas station attendants during his brief layover in the Smokies.
In a pull-out-all-the-stops, late-night phone call to Calhoun County receiver Alshon Jeffery the night before Signing Day last year, Kiffin allegedly told Jeffery he would wind up pumping gas if he signed with his home-state Gamecocks.
The next morning Jeffery picked USC over ... Southern Cal.
Had Jeffery gone to Southern Cal, he would have wound up playing for Kiffin his final three years - and paying a lot more at the pump.
When Calhoun County coach Walt Wilson saw the Kiffin news scroll across the bottom of his TV screen Tuesday night, he sent Jeffery a text message that read: "You made a great decision."
Wilson said Jeffery didn't say much in his reply. The quiet freshman seldom does.
But Wilson said he's not surprised Kiffin bolted back to Los Angeles.
"Bottom line, you knew his goal was to build a Southern Cal on the East Coast. So you knew if he had the opportunity to go to the real Southern Cal, that wouldn't have been a thought," Wilson said Wednesday. "And you saw that: It wasn't even a thought."
As for Pete Carroll, who appears to have left Southern Cal one step ahead of the NCAA posse, Wilson said Jeffery once asked Carroll how long he would be with the Trojans.
"And he said, 'I'm going to be there a long time,'" Wilson said. "And you saw how that went."
"It was meant to be," Wilson said of Jeffery coming to South Carolina. "The kid made a great decision, and he can see that now. If you go to a school for a coach and not the school or the people that's there, you may end up on the short end of the stick."
Jeffery ended up in a program that seems like the picture of stability in what has been a turbulent few weeks in the SEC East.
Tennessee has to find a coach before more recruits jump ship. Florida coach Urban Meyer is preparing to take a leave of absence, while five of his juniors have taken their own leave to the NFL.
Kentucky's Rich Brooks stepped aside for coach-in-waiting Joker Phillips, and Georgia still has not hired a defensive coordinator.
Meanwhile, the Gamecocks have lost one assistant coach - albeit a good one in offensive line coach Eric Wolford - and one early NFL entrant in defensive end Clifton Geathers, who is projected as a fourth- to seventh-round pick.
Of course, all those returning players and coaches are the same ones who were waxed by Connecticut in the Papajohns.com Bowl to finish off a 7-6 season. So don't expect Steve Spurrier to start calling his team an SEC contender just yet.
It will be interesting to see if Spurrier has any parting shots for Kiffin. Shortly after Kiffin was hired, Spurrier questioned whether Kiffin had taken the NCAA rules test before he began calling recruits.
Kiffin responded by informing reporters he correctly answered 39 of the 40 questions on the test.
Not that you would ever know it.
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