Rebuilding the Reputation of a Team and a Coach.

In December of ’08 Lane Kiffin was hired as the new head coach at the University of Tennessee. The 34 year old Kiffin was charged with rebuilding not only the UT football team but its reputation as being one of college football’s elite teams.

Since the hiring of Lane Kiffin as head coach of the University of Tennessee football team a lot has happened. Some by design, some by mistake and some by surprise but whatever the case no one can say things are the same at UT. Kiffin made statements early on in his first year as head coach that raised a few eyebrows not only by Alum and fans of UT but by the coaches and fans of the other 11 SEC Schools. What many may not have expected was the development of several players, including Crompton, into stars and restoring the competitiveness of a team that had become too complacent at time and seemed to quit during games in just his first year as head coach.
            Kiffin is the youngest head coach in the SEC and the first not associated with this university prior to becoming a head coach for football in many years. Both Johnny Majors and Phil Fulmer were former players with ties to UT. Kiffin’s only head coaching experience was with the Oakland Raiders and the record there did nothing to support a belief that Kiffin could lead a major SEC football program back to the championship level it once had in the late ‘90’s. Kiffin served as Offensive Coordinator at Southern Cal under head coach Pete Carroll and while his coaching ability as OC was considered very good this would be a major challenge for any coach with prior head coaching experience.

The last decade has seen an absence of any SEC titles, BCS bowl wins and a lack of competitiveness many noticed during games against the conference rivals like UF, UGA and Alabama along with any ranked opponent. Last year’s record of 5-7 was one of the worst of all time, and an offensive output ranking of 115th in the nation was more than many could have ever imagined. Throw in numerous incidents involving football players and the police and you got a picture that the program was out of control.

The Rebuilding process at UT is threefold talent, attitude and player development. In order to begin rebuild a program as storied as UT’s one of the biggest issues was that the talent level needed to be increased and depth at key positions would need to be filled. In less than two months after his hiring Kiffin assembled a great staff and brought in a top 10 recruiting class.  This season began back in the spring with many unanswered questions, not the least of which was at the QB position. Neither Crompton nor Stephens had won over the position during the ’08 season which saw UT’s offensive output at the bottom of almost every NCAA ranking. The offensive line while returning several seniors had two walk-ons competing for starting positions.

To be successful Kiffin had to first stop the bleeding that could be a team killer and he did that be installing higher performance standards for both on the field and off the field activities.  One of the biggest challenges Kiffin had to address in his 1^st year was rebuilding Confidence to a team that has suffered through 2 losing season in the last 4. Last years 5-7 fallout with big loses to UF, GA, USC and Bama along with an unthought-of of loss to Wyoming has had adverse affects on this team. The attitude among the players has been changed in evidence by how competitive UT played this season even with the depth and talent issues caused by injuries and a shortage of more than 20 scholarship players on the roster.

Player development was another big challenge as UT did not have a QB that was a proven leader. Crompton had seen 4 different OC’s in his 5 years at UT and following his performance in ’08 few on lookers had any belief he could be developed in an SEC caliber QB. Kiffin’s staff did develop Crompton into the QB many had given up hope on.  He finished the season as the SEC 2^nd highest rated passer. Other players like D Williams developed into NFL caliber prospects. Hardesty had a career year that will surely place him on someone’s NFL roster next year. All in all this team with all of the problems coming off of last year’s debacle and combined with the depth and talent issues performed better than the preseason predictions of a 4^th place finish in the SEC east division and a possible 2^nd consecutive losing season.

            Kiffin knows he must continue to put together recruiting classes like the one he and his staff did back in February of ‘09. While Kiffin was a successful recruiter at USC he is now up against the likes of Meyer at UF with 2 National Championships in 3 years, Nick Saban at Bama which has already had the best recruiting class in college football in just 2 years, Mark Richt at GA who puts together top 10 recruiting classes almost every year. Rebuilding UT back into the perennial top ten team, it once enjoyed regularly, will be a journey not done in just one year. After all it took a decade from the 1998 Championship team to get to the low point of last year. At the same time Kiffin is building or rebuilding as it may be his reputation as a head coach. His final success will be determined mainly by wins & losses but also by the reputation of the UT football program off the field.
Keeping it Real.
Go Vols!!!!