Back in February 2009, when he was just 33 years old and just weeks into the job as head coach at Tennessee, Lane Kiffin accused Florida of recruiting violations because, you know, when it comes to following the rules, what better authority is there than Lane Kiffin?
It turns out the accusations were all wrong, one reason then-SEC commissioner Mike Slive issued Kiffin an official reprimand and Kiffin apologized. Slive later held a closed door meeting with league coaches and sternly lectured them about publicly airing their feuds.
It was a rocky start on Rocky Top.
It all seems so quaint now.
On Tuesday, the SEC held another closed door meeting in which representatives from all 16 schools voted to essentially ban former professional players from the league.
It came in response to Kiffin, now the head coach at LSU, attempting to land at least three players who were recently cut from NFL training camps but had won temporary restraining orders from an East Baton Rouge Parish judge allowing them to play.
The vote was unanimous: 16-zip. That means even LSU (initially at least) voted against its own coach. It followed the Big Ten and others hastily making their own rules in response to Kiffin’s eve-of-season recruiting that once seemed so ridiculous that no one thought a rule was needed.
“College sports are for college athletes,” the SEC actually declared in a statement.
“Feel like I took a freakin’ gummy,” Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay said when discussing having waived-NFL rookies go back to college. McVay spoke for seemingly all of football save a few plaintiff attorneys.
Lane Kiffin v. Everyone. Always.
All of this comes amidst Kiffin’s career of wild break-ups — fired at an airport by USC, dismissed as an Alabama assistant before a national title game, leaving Tennessee with such tumult they considered naming a waste treatment plant after him and, most recently, bailing on a playoff team at Ole Miss to come to LSU.
Kiffin, now a battled-hardened 51, will tell you it’s all coincidence or history or happenstance. And while he’ll always work the angles, by the standards of college sports, his “scandals” are fairly harmless, or even comical, not criminal. He’s just never been the backing down type.
In this case, he’ll note he’s just recruiting players who are eligible to be recruited — “we followed all court orders” — and that he is hardly the only coach attempting it — “they’re either going to play for you or they’re going to play for someone else.”
He’s not wrong.
“[Whatever school] the first player [waived from the NFL] committed to was going to be the poster child …,” Kiffin said Tuesday on “The Pat McAfee Show.” “I said, ‘Get ready guys, this is going to be Lane Kiffin and LSU are doing something nobody is doing.'”
Then again, of course he’s in the middle of this.
Kiffin’s aw shucks deflections are a well-worn bit. There is always an element of truth, but the sheer volume of maelstroms he finds himself in the middle of erodes its plausibility.
The fact it was Kiffin likely added to the skepticism; a fear that he was getting over on everyone by working a loophole that other programs couldn’t or wouldn’t. And just how big a role, if any, he played in organizing all is still unknown.
Either way, the sport rallied on one side of this issue in a way that has rarely been seen. Coaches spoke out. The NCAA issued statements. Leagues slapped together new rules.
It’s not that the players in question don’t have an argument.
They believe that the college Class of 2026 should have been grandfathered into the NCAAs “five-in-five” rule passed in June. That would have made them eligible for one more season. Yes they went to the NFL, but not out of choice, they argue. Rather because there was no choice. If the five-in-five had been granted, they would have stayed in school.
You may not agree with that, but their case is not without some merit. You can see where a court might honestly grant the players’ injunction or strike down the SEC’s new rules.
Whatever the decision, this is Kiffin’s biggest fight yet.
LSU paid tens of millions in buyouts and contracts to fire Brian Kelly and hire Kiffin away from Ole Miss. It did so with full knowledge of what it was getting — a talented coach undeterred that his endless ambition tends to put his bosses in difficult positions.
In this case, if the court goes the players’ way, then LSU would need to go against everyone else.
The coach will always push. Can his school handle the pull?
Does LSU really want to take on the entire SEC, the league office and beyond for a few players? Does it want to risk reputation, possible sanctions, scorn and isolation? Is there a fight it won’t take?
We’ve long known Kiffin’s answer to such questions.
