This much we now know about the Lane Kiffin era at the University of Tennessee. Until further notice, it has no class.
There’s such a thing as pumping up interest in a football program that needed to regain momentum. There’s such a thing as firing up your donors and alumni.
And there’s such a thing as trying to do both of these by slandering the competition — in this case, Urban Meyer, head coach of the defending national champion University of Florida.
What Kiffin, UT’s newly-hired head coach, did was to accuse Meyer of cheating to get a recruit that ultimately signed with UT (after previously committing to UF). Meyer called the recruit when he was on the UT campus for a visit. It’s all perfectly legal. But Kiffin didn’t know that. So he publicly declared: “Just so you know, when a recruit is on another campus, you can’t call him. I love the fact that Urban had to cheat and still didn’t get him.”
Among those criticizing Kiffin were Southeast Conference Commissioner Mike Slive and UF Athletics Director Jeremy Foley.
Kiffin then apologized and chalked up his slanderous comments to new guy “enthusiasm.” He said his words “were not intended to offend anyone at the University of Florida.”
No offense was intended by publicly stating that Meyer “had to cheat” in his recruiting of a prospect? What might he have said had he really wanted to offend?
And as for Lane’s dad, former Tampa Bay Buc defensive coordinator, Monte Kiffin, who has joined his son at UT: Is this how you raised your kid? If so, no wonder you got along so well with that punk who coached the Bucs the last seven years.
And one other thing. Kiffin is well advised to recall what happened to Mark Richt. The Georgia coached pulled that bush league, team-celebration gimmick against UF back in 2007. Meyer filed it away – and replied on the field in ’08: UF 49-UGA 10.
This year’s UF-UT game will be in Gainesville.