By
Brian Harbach
In one day the University of Tennessee football program has been turned on its head with former Head Coach Lane Kiffin taking over at Southern Cal. My immediate reaction to this was that Kiffin took the easier job and I can’t blame him for that. Coaching at Tennessee or any SEC program is not easy, in just the past couple years two coaches with undefeated seasons were fired after 10 plus years of service to their universities (one of them being his alma mater…Fulmer), a coach resigned/took a leave of absence/took an extended vacation due to stress related heart problems brought on by the job, a coach with 2 SEC Championships/3 BCS bowl appearances is on the hot seat and subsequently can’t find a defensive coordinator. This conference is not for the faint of heart and coaches are only guaranteed the money their contract states.
The SEC landscape is always changing and coaches must adapt, it is this way because it is the toughest and most challenging head coaching job in the country. Kiffin took the easy way out and correctly realized it is much easier to win a National Championship at USC and in the PAC 10 than it ever will be to do so at Tennessee or any other SEC school. For that reason it is safe to say that Lane Kiffin was not man enough to coach in the SEC. That isn’t meant as a shot at Kiffin, some coaches just can’t handle the pressure and worry about their future, not the job at hand. Some people may say that USC is a better job than Tennessee but that is not the case, it is just an easier one.
The decision for Kiffin was easy when you compare a program that recruits hard for players that will compete in the SEC to a program that has no competition in the second most talent rich state in the country. Tennessee is a program that goes up against programs like Alabama, Georgia, Florida and LSU on a yearly basis, USC plays Arizona, Arizona State, Cal and Oregon each year. Not really apples to apples and you still aren’t sure why Kiffin ran to Southern California? This wasn’t about money, it wasn’t about power, and it wasn’t about winning. It was about laziness…it is easier to win at USC, win conference championships at USC and win National Championships at USC.
I am not saying that this is good riddance to Kiffin because he would have been successful at Tennessee and he would have done a good job. He was recruiting very well and he was in the head of a lot of coaches in the league. He was good for the SEC because the league has gotten boring with its coaches lately. There aren’t a lot of dynamic personalities in the conference right now, it is a bunch of PC, hardworking, head down coaches and Kiffin was bucking that trend. He was Steve Spurrier as an aggressive reptile in Gainesville before he became a silent salamander in Columbia. Kiffin challenged the other coaches, he challenged the commissioner, he said things that every fan wished their coach had the guts to say, but knew it would be stupid to do so.
He made games like Florida/Tennessee exciting again because honestly they had gotten pretty boring. He made the SEC Media Days something you wanted to pay attention to instead of just hearing the same old coach speak for three straight days. For goodness sake, he turned Jonathon Crompton into a good SEC quarterback, that says something about his ability to coach but in the end he walked away from a challenge and accepted a sure thing.
One person who should not be blamed by the Tennessee fans for this situation is Athletic Director Mike Hamilton. He took a chance on a young coach and a lot of people questioned it when the hire was made and will continue to question it since Kiffin is gone. But it was a good hire at the time and a good hire today. In his first two months at Tennessee, Kiffin turned a mediocre recruiting class into one of the top classes in the country. The Vols have strong building blocks in the running game with Bryce Brown and David Oku. They have a young star in the secondary with Janzen Jackson. The talent that he brought in last year was a serious upgrade compared with what had been happening in the previous regime and most of those players would not be on campus if it wasn’t for Kiffin.
Because of the good he did do in Knoxville there is a chance that Kiffin’s stock may never have been higher. Some Tennessee fans were skeptical of his hire and one that I talked to today pointed to the schedule next season as a reason for him to run out the door. Sure it was only a 7-6 season this year but with next year’s schedule including Oregon, Florida, at LSU, at UGA, Alabama and at South Carolina all in the first two months there is a good chance that record could have been worse in 2010. So Kiffin would have worked his butt off in Knoxville to get to 6-6 and a spot on the hot seat or he can breeze his way to a 10 win season in LA and probably a PAC 10 title.
If your head coach wants to take the easy way out, then there is no reason to be upset over him leaving. Tennessee is going to hire a good coach and should feel pretty confident they will get someone better than Kiffin. There are some very good options out there right now and all of them would be better hires than Kiffin was a year ago. Coaches like John Gruden, Will Muschamp, Tommy Tuberville (his agent is Jimmy Sexton, so yes he is in play) and Greg Schiano would all jump at the opportunity to coach at Tennessee. Heck, even Randy Edsall can beat Steve Spurrier so why not bring him down for an interview.
The University of Tennessee is a big time job and like any head coaching position in the SEC it is demanding, challenging and rewarding. A lot is expected from SEC coaches and it seems pretty obvious that Lane Kiffin did not like the demands that the came with the SEC dollars. Good thing for Tennessee is that there are a lot of other coaches who understand what it means to coach in the SEC and would jump at the chance to do so. Tennessee is going to hire a great head coach; there is no question about that. Maybe it will end up working out better in the end and the Kiffin experiment was a blessing in disguise. But knowing what you know about him now, aren’t you just a little glad he has moved on?
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me Brian Harbach
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