DESTIN – No matter how he tried, Lane Kiffin couldn’t stay out of his own way Tuesday on the first day of the Southeastern Conference Spring Meeting at the Sandestin Beach Hilton.
The first-year Tennessee head football coach, who has yet to coach a game in the SEC but has managed to step on the toes of, among others, South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier, Florida’s Urban Meyer and Alabama’s Nick Saban, stood in front of the media for a half hour and puffed out his chest about what he and his staff have accomplished at Rocky Top in their six months, especially on the recruiting trail.
Of course, because of NCAA regulations, Kiffin is not allowed to be on the road this month. But the Tennessee coach has been getting a daily morning report – much like how the President of the United States receives a daily national security update – on where his assistants have been and who they have visited. And, of course, he was more than happy to reveal his school’s progress.
“I feel we’ve been everywhere – we’ve been to a ton of states and saw every top player,” Kiffin said. “We have to go everywhere. You have to have a national presence. We needed a spark immediately. To get national exposure, you’ve got to have people talking about you. We have not played any games yet, so we had to make an immediate impact.”
Which, of course, explains why the new kid on the block wasn’t afraid to come into the neighborhood and immediately mark his territory.
“Do I love everything I had to do to get us to this point?” Kiffin said. “No, I don’t. But we had to make an immediate impact. We couldn’t have sat back in the weeds.”
The perception, though, is that Kiffin has been lying in the weeds ever since he came to Rocky Top.
After Signing Day during a breakfast meeting with boosters, Kiffin accused Meyer of violating NCAA rules for calling Nu’Keese Richardson, who had verbally committed to Florida, while the Pahokee recruit was on an 11th-hour recruiting trip to Tennessee. No rule, of course, exists and Kiffin apologized to Meyer, Florida AD Jeremy Foley and the SEC for his remarks. Richardson, of course, signed with the Vols.
That happened, of course, a couple of months after Kiffin contacted running back Jarvis Giles of Tampa Gaither, who had de-committed after Tennessee and Phil Fulmer parted ways. Spurrier wondered how Kiffin could do that, considering he hadn’t taken the required NCAA recruiting test. (Giles ended up signing with South Carolina.)
During his media visit Tuesday, Kiffin said he didn’t think he needed to apologize to Meyer because he already had. “But I’m still waiting for coach Spurrier to apologize for calling me out about taking the (NCAA) test,” Kiffin joked.
Later in the afternoon as Spurrier, Kiffin and coaches Gene Chizik (Auburn), Bobby Petrino (Arkansas) and Rich Brooks (Kentucky) waited for an elevator, some media members told Spurrier what Kiffin had said. Spurrier turned to Kiffin and said, “I didn’t accuse you of cheating. I said, ‘Is it permissible to call recruits before he’s announced as head coach, before you take the test?’”
Kiffin’s face reportedly turned red. Spurrier then explained to the media that Kiffin had taken the test online and he was unaware that it could be taken that way.
For Kiffin, it seems, the end justifies the means even if you have no clue how the end is going to end. And it was almost as if he was sounding a warning to the league’s other 11 coaches (and those around the country) about his aggressive plans for Tennessee’s future recruiting efforts.
“We’re behind a class and the class behind that,” Kiffin said. “If you’ve got your recruiting going, you know who your ninth and 10th graders (targets) are. We’re behind in that.”
Kiffin, who was the quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at Southern California before being tapped by Al Davis to lead the Oakland Raiders back from Davy Jones’ locker, had the reputation of being an aggressive recruiter for USC head coach Pete Carroll.
How aggressive? Well, when asked if he had ever offered a ninth- or 10th-grader a scholarship, Kiffin didn’t hesitate.
“Matt Barkley, as a freshman” said Kiffin of the strong-armed Under Armour All-American from the same Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, Calif., that produced former Trojan QBs Matt Leinart and Todd Marinovich. Barkley early enrolled at USC and made a run at the starting job in spring practice with incumbents Aaron Corp and Mitch Mustain, the former Arkansas quarterback, and ended the spring at No. 2 behind Corp.
The memory of his recruiting days at USC are distant now that Kiffin is the head coach. During the month of May, assistant coaches can be on the road recruiting; the head coach must stay at home, which doesn’t allow Kiffin and his head-coaching brethren to be out and evaluating future talent for themselves.
“I wish they would change that rule,” he said.
Which is why, of course, there is a rule. And there’s never been an NCAA recruiting rule that hasn’t been abused.
Which means, in Lane’s World, everything is ex-cel-lent.