Post-Kiffin watch: picking up the pieces

There’s so much stuff out there about Junior’s career move that a roundup best suffices.

• I confess that I couldn’t stomach more than about 60 seconds of the self-serving nonsense Kiffin was dishing out at his USC press conference, but unfortunately I tuned in long enough to bear witness to hearing this come out of his mouth:  “If they weren’t upset that we were leaving, then we weren’t doing anything right.” Get that, Vol fans?  You feel betrayed because the Laner was doing such a good job.
• Chris Dufresne has an amusing summary of Junior’s past and present, along with a suggested economy for the NCAA:  Maybe it can roll the USC and Tennessee investigations into one case.
• If it’s pure vitriol you’re looking for, it’s hard to top Gene Wojciechowski’s column.
• Junior sure looked unhappy jetting out of Knoxville.
• Somebody counts the similarities between Lane Kiffin and Sarah Palin.
• Meanwhile, back at the ranch (more like the smoking crater that used to be a ranch), Mike Hamilton hopes to have a new head coach in place pronto.
• Jon Gruden says it won’t be him.
• Will Muschamp says he’s not going anywhere either.
• Tony Barnhart says keep an eye out for the Fulmer power play.
• Not a link, just a question:  who gets stuck being Daniel Hood’s babysitter now?
• Hamilton may not have a coach lined up, but it sounds like he intends to play hardball with Kiffin’s early enrollees.  That should go over well.
• On the subject of those recruits, Ed Orgeron says that in approaching them about ditching their UT commitments so they could follow him Pied Piper-like to the left coast, he didn’t knowingly violate any rules.  To his knowledge, even.  (Notice that he doesn’t deny acting like a complete sleazeball, though – knowingly or otherwise.)

And this deserves a special mention – a couple of musical tracks to honor the occasion were getting airplay on Knoxville station WIVK and were forwarded to me by alert reader NM (click to play):

The Ballad of Lane Clampett

Jump on the Lame Train

Again, they’re just bitter because Junior was so good…