Lame Kiffin Strikes Again: Two Recruiting Violations at Tennessee

You can do what Tennessee's new coach, Lane Kiffin, did in the SEC. You can come in and call out the reigning SEC and National Champion head coach. You can steal his recruit, say he cheated, and brag about how you told the recruit to lie to everyone too. You really can, but only on one condition....

You can't be wrong.

Even more important than that, you can't be guilty of cheating yourself!

That's right. Not only did Kiffin make a fool of himself, his staff, and his team by calling Urban Meyer a cheater and then finding out that what Meyer did wasn't wrong at all; as if that alone wasn't bad enough, his school had to self-report two recruiting violations yesterday!

I really don't know that this story can make Kiffin look like any more of a tool.

In letters to the NCAA and the SEC, the Tennessee athletic department confirmed that the violations had occurred in January. One of the recruiting violations included players involved in a fake press conference as if they had played a football game. The second violation was for use of a fog machine as players ran into Neyland Stadium.

Although these are minor violations that would normally not be a big deal, Kiffin created a huge target on his forehead and created a media firestorm by pointing his finger at Meyer last week about a nonexistent rule. Now, he not only looks like an idiot, but a hypocritical one to boot.

I just don't know how much longer his newness will last at Tennessee with shenanigans like this going on, but what do I know? The toothless hillbillies from big orange country wanted a little excitement in their program after having the boring Phil Fulmer pace the sidelines for so many years. Maybe they got exactly what they bargained for.

I just hope they appreciate what they bargained for come September in Gainesville.

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Rusty Thompson is a contributor to GatorTailgating.com