Bryce Brown Will Bring Down Lane Kiffin and Tennessee

Lane Kiffin is like a small child being ignored by the adults in the room. To be noticed he had to do big things—big things that have also turned out to be stupid things. 

He spouts off about the well-established coaches, insults high school programs by name, and says the high school players in Tennessee are the pits.

He says anyone who plays for South Carolina ends up pumping gas. He says some poor scrub that picked him up late at the airport got fired. (It was a lie.)

Sign a vicious rapist who duct-taped, raped, and tortured a young girl? In Kiffin's world, sure, why not?

Then he goes and says he never did those things or said those things, or they were taken out of context. Then he backtracks and said he did those things on purpose to get some publicity, and he'd do them all over again.

Kiffin's words already have the credibility of a crackhead giving an anti-drug talk to high school students.

Now his actions are in question, and it may bring the whole program crashing down around him.

Kiffin wanted a big signee to get some excitement going, and he got the biggest. Was he blinded by every bit of baggage that came with it?

The NCAA is investigating Tennessee, under Lane Kiffin, who signed high school athlete Bryce Brown. Brown is the nation's No. 1 high school signee, but he may not qualify anymore as an amateur. This would violate not only Brown, but also any school that tried to sign him, or in Tennessee's case, the one that did.

The University of Oregon, who did not even sign him and only offered him, has hired a lawyer to help them work with the NCAA in this matter.

Brian Butler, who identifies himself as the Brown brothers' trainer and manager, is the problem in this story. It has already been proved that Butler raised money for Bryce to visit different colleges.

This is a clear violation of NCAA rules, and any school that Bryce visited with those funds is also under investigation, hence the hiring of a lawyer at Oregon.

Should he take the field in a regular season game, the penalties that could rain down on Tennessee could be severe.

But Kiffin is so happy crowing about landing the nation's No. 1 recruit and using that as a launching pad to entice others that he's simply ignoring the momentum that the NCAA is building against Brown.

I'm sure Mike Hamilton is turning grey worrying whether to stop this train wreck before it happens.

The NCAA is trying to stop the use of agents, brokers, and managers from becoming as widespread in football as it is in basketball. They want, to quote Barney Fife, to "nip it in the bud."

To make their point, they could come down hard on Tennessee to discourage others from doing this sort of thing.

What sort of thing? Work with "agents" for high school students, especially those who seem to have shady backgrounds and methods such as Butler.

How bad is Butler? The New York Times did an exposé on him that I won't go into, but I will say it was not flattering. Judge for yourself. 

The fact that the recruit in question broke NCAA rules is not in doubt. What will happen to Tennessee for having a role in all this is the big question yet to be answered.

The next question: What will happen to Kiffin?