Kiffin watch: rapidly approaching dumbass territory

I’ve never made back-to-back posts concerning Junior before, but all good things must come to an end, I suppose.  Anyway, after reading this Knoxville News online story (h/t The Wizard of Odds), I can only conclude that anyone still using the “Lane Kiffin, crazy like a fox” line means to insult the intelligence of foxes.

If you’re a Vol fan, you have to hope that nobody is this stupid on purpose:

Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin may have committed a sixth NCAA secondary recruiting violation since his hiring, this one resulting from a segment featuring him on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.”

During the segment first televised Sunday morning, Kiffin is shown meeting and talking with a recruit. At the end of the segment about Kiffin, ESPN’s Bob Ley, host of the show, brought the possible violation to light.

“Wendi Nix reporting,” Ley said. “Now, Kiffin’s arrival has brought several secondary NCAA violations. It is entirely possible that you just saw another one. Remember the scene where Lane Kiffin is speaking with a recruit?

“Well, in the infamously thick NCAA rulebook, Rule 13.0.1, (it states) media members cannot observe recruiting contact by coaches. Tennessee tells Outside the Lines it is reviewing this matter. The NCAA is reserving comment until the story airs, so we look forward to hearing from them today (Sunday).”

UT spokesperson Tiffany Carpenter confirmed Sunday that UT is reviewing the ESPN story.

That’s right, he allowed a recruiting violation to be filmed for national TV.   I think even the most rabid orange-clad fan would agree it takes a special kind of genius for that.  And I would think that a seventeen-year old recruit meeting with Junior in the future might want to check the room for wires first.

The best part of the article is that there’s more.  There’s mud wrestling with Al Davis –

The Raiders then issued a statement for the “Outside the Lines” segment on Kiffin.

“Lane Kiffin is a flat-out liar,” the statement read. “He lied to the team, he lied to the fans, and he lied to the media. He will try to destroy that university like he tried to destroy the Raiders, and will eventually clash with (women’s basketball coach Pat) Summitt and (men’s basketball coach Bruce) Pearl. Other than that, the Raiders can say nothing further.”

And there’s the Laner, talking about gas stations again, in a clear violation of the First Rule of Holes.

During the segment, Kiffin again denied telling a recruit that he would end up pumping gas like other South Carolina graduates if the recruit went to play for the Gamecocks.

“No, there’s no way that I said that,” Kiffin said. “I wouldn’t say anything like that. First of all, if you look at, I don’t think that anybody pumps gas because everything is self-serve nowadays. There’s no full-serve stations, so I’m smart enough to not have said it because of that, number one. But number two, we don’t negative recruit.”

There, he said it – he’s smart.  He was smart when he said this in the Gainesville Sun, too.

“For those of you who haven’t been to Pahokee, there ain’t much going on. 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.”

Everybody comments on how attractive Junior’s wife is.  I keep waiting for somebody to drop in one of my favorite expressions about it – that he out kicked his coverage.  A couple more incidents like this ought to do the trick, I figure.

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UPDATE: Over at Team Speed Kills, cocknfire adds some thoughts on the matter.

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UPDATE #2: To answer the question posed in the header of this post, yes, he can.

Kiffin watch: on getting it, and getting after it.

My post on why I don’t understand Junior’s strategy in rebuilding the Tennessee brand has prompted a couple of responses on the ‘Net – one from Brian Cook, who shares my puzzlement, and one from Rocky Top Talk’s CornFromAJar, who responds to Brian and me.

Corn’s response was thoughtful and honest – he’s got no idea where the ride is going to take him, but at least he’s enjoying the journey so far – and so deserves a brief response in return.  What I’m struck by with his post (and some of the comments to it) is how tired the UT fan base had grown of Fulmer.  Now, being a Georgia fan, I can certainly understand how a coach’s appeal can wear thin, but it’s not like Fulmer’s resume was exactly threadbare, even of late (there was a SECCG appearance in ’07 that was extremely painful for me, anyway).

But here’s the thing:  like him or not (and I’m certainly in the latter category), you never questioned the fact that Fulmer bled orange.  So far, there’s nothing in Junior’s actions that indicates the same dedication to UT – if anything, some of what he’s done is quite contrary to that.  And again, I realize that winning will override much of that for the typical Vol fan.  But I’m still a wee bit surprised by it – especially if it’s an attitude shared by Hamilton, which Corn assures me it is.

But if going in a radically different direction, and by that I mean ignoring convention and tradition to a significant extent, was the approach embraced by Hamilton from the start, why didn’t he talk seriously to somebody like Mike Leach who’s been very successful on the college level?  Leach (who has an SEC coaching background, unlike Junior) with some stellar recruiters could have been a force in the conference, could he not?

Further, I think Corn has badly missed on Brian’s comparison of Junior and Spurrier.  The point isn’t that both men run their mouths, only Spurrier waited until he accomplished something. It’s that Spurrier went into Gainesville armed with an offensive strategy he knew would work and a realization that the key to success was changing the program’s attitude about the Georgia game, while the Laner’s method to date can only be characterized as an ad hoc approach to doing whatever it takes to win recruits.  And if that’s all it takes to win big in the SEC, the Zooker would still be a Gator.

I guess I’m just finding a lot of the “it’s all part of a plan” talk a lot of after the fact justification, particularly in light of the last contract Hamilton handed out to Fulmer.

On the other hand, if you want to find something that should legitimately excite the UT faithful, check out this lengthy, detailed post on NFL defenses.  There may be more there than you ever wanted to know, but interspersed throughout is a lot about Monte Kiffin’s strategy.  And if you look at Warren Sapp’s career as sort of a collaborative effort between Orgeron and MK, it’s hard not to be impressed about what they might be able to accomplish together – while it lasts, anyway.

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UPDATE: Without context, I can’t say for certain, but, Jeezus, this seems excessive:

Under Kiffin’s direction, UT spent $835,908.47 from Dec. 1 to National Signing Day on Feb. 4.

How to win friends and influence people.

Judging from the tone emitted from the conference commissioners of CUSA and the SEC, the Mountain West Conference’s great crusade to remake the BCS is falling on deaf ears.

“Often times I’m sitting here and saying to myself, `Last year I tried to get people to talk about a plus-one and they didn’t talk about it,'” Slive said. “So you can assume there’s some reluctance to talk about a playoff.”

Instead of hiring a lobbyist for Washington, Craig Thompson might have done better hiring one to shmooze his peers.

If there’s a point in there somewhere, I must have missed it.

After some thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that this may be the most senseless post regarding college football that I’ve ever read.