We take a break from our regularly scheduled Auburn blogging to bring you the latest from Lane Kiffin, whose brief Tennessee tenure is turning into possibly the greatest bit of unintentional comedy the SEC has seen in a while.Remember when Kiffin accused Urban Meyer of a recruiting violation that wasn't? Well, he might want to read up on the rules himself, because the 33-year-old coach recently committed his third minor recruiting violation since taking the Volunteers job Nov. 30, according to The Tennessean.
An excerpt:
During the radio interview, Kiffin was asked a general question about being concerned that some highly-touted recruits are waiting until after Signing Day to sign with a school. Kiffin was also reminded by the host, Dave Hooker, that coaches are not allowed to talk about specific players that UT is currently still recruiting, but Kiffin still named Brown.This story comes right after Kiffin was featured in Sports Illustrated this week (on a side note, he played quarterback at Bloomington [Minn.] Jefferson High, archrival of my alma mater, six-time football state champion Eden Prairie). In the story, Kiffin relates a story of having to wait 25 minutes for a driver to pick him up at the airport. He claims to have fired the person in charge of setting up the pick-up.
“I really don’t like the direction it’s going,” Kiffin said on the show. “Once very talented players do things, it becomes the cool thing to do, and then the next guy does it. And more and more guys do it. I think what’s going to happen is you’re going to see, you know, great players like Bryce Brown are doing it now.”
Not so, according to Tennessee athletic director Mike Hamilton, who had this to say in a response to GoVolsXtra.com:
"He has not fired anybody," UT athletic director Mike Hamilton said Thursday afternoon. "If he said he has fired somebody, that's not true. I don't know if he said it from a standpoint of making a point that 'We've got to get this right.' But he didn't fire anybody.
"You can't just fire anybody at Tennessee, particularly when you're talking about non-contract employees. There's a process."
Tennessee did try to play spin control in the story:
Tiffany Carpenter, UT's director of public relations, said Kiffin had a change of heart about the firing."The (Sports Illustrated) interview happened the day of the incident," Carpenter said. "At that time, (Kiffin) wanted to fire that individual but after further thought and discussions decided that was not in the best interest of Tennessee."
I don't know if I necessarily believe that, but I do know that I am going to enjoy the stories that come out of Kiffin era, that's for sure.
1 comment:
LOL, Kiffin is either really stupid, or...uhhh.... hmmm... I don't know what else it could be.
When the whole Raiders thing went down, I think most people, including myself, blamed it on Al Davis. Now I'm thinking Kiffin probably played a large part in that whole situation. Al Davis is definitley a nut, but now it looks like Kiffin is equally a nut. He's not going to last long at Tennessee at all if this keeps up much longer. The fans and everybody else there won't put up with it, when the whole school starts to look bad over this guy's shenanigans. In fact, my gut tells me that the Tennessee AD is already regretting the hire, at least a little.
On Auburn's side, the Chizik hire has started to look pretty good. He has made solid coaching hires, he was pretty successful in recruiting, considering the situation, and he has not had any controversey around him at all so far.
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