Mitchell Blog: Kiffin's Crazy Like a What?

On the cusp of a new season, a fresh take on the Boy Wonder

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This just in – Lane Kiffin said bowling is a lame sport played by rented, red-headed step-children. No truth to the rumor it was followed up with an invite to the White House.

So I think Lane Kiffin is crazy, but more “crazy like a fox” than “Nick Nolte” crazy. I’ll stop just south of calling him a genius, since he isn’t, and that word is as about as overused these days as “bailout”. But consider this: when was the last time you thought about how Tennessee’s players folded last year like a third-grade, cheap metal chair?

We should be.

It’s Spring ball! The time of year tailor made for questions like that, and this: how could QB Jonathan Crompton have been so abysmal last season with all that talent around him? Or how can we think this season will be any better, with Kiffin and crew interviewing TEs to play Offensive Tackle (google Aaron Douglas)?

Instead, we’re talking about Kiffin’s antics. Lane Kiffin said what?! Kiffin to the left of me, Kiffin to the right...

As a dear friend once told me, great leaders absorb uncertainty. Be they coaches or CEOs, that might be their single greatest responsibility – to suck up uncertainty like a top-shelf Dyson, and allow their players/employees the ability to execute without distraction.

Nick Saban does it. So does Les Miles. They do it with different styles, sure, but they take the focus off their players/coaches – absorb the uncertainty – and allow them to concentrate on doing their jobs.

No, I’m not prepared to compare the boy wonder from Knoxvegas to Saban or Miles, let alone a great leader. And I’m not completely sure how much of this is a specific strategy of Kiffin’s, and how much of it is he’s just a nut. But I checked back when he was HC with the Raiders, and there wasn’t nearly as much of this behavior (‘course, that could be because compared to Al Davis everyone appears sane). Nor at USC.

Say what you will about Kiffin, but he’s taken the negative spotlight off his richly deserving players, and enabled them instead to concentrate with a great set of assistant coaches. That's something of a feat in the cut-throat, media-crazy world of SEC football.

Looking forward to see if he can coach.