Is This the Real Lane Kiffin?

Who are you?

If any of us have any doubts how to answer this question, we can open our wallets and check our driver’s licenses. At the very least, that will give us a name.

But are we more than a name? Most of us are the roles we play—parent, student, boss, employee, doctor, writer, or head football coach.

So far in his youthful professional career, Lane Kiffin has had three head coaching jobs—one in the NFL and two in Division-I college football. That is quite a lot for someone who is only 34-years-old. Usually at that age, most NFL and D-I coaches are still assistants.

In each of his head coaching assignments, Kiffin has shown a different side of himself. Were all three personalities the real Lane Kiffin, or were they simply roles that he has been playing?

I am not aware that he has a multiple personality disorder, so I must assume that all three have been roles that fit the job.

In Oakland, he was the demonstrative Lane Kiffin. There, he tried to show everyone that it was his team. That’s not very conducive to longevity if your owner happens to be Al Davis. The Raiders are Davis’ team and will most likely remain his team until Davis departs from this world.

Kiffin went against Davis in almost every major decision that needed to be made. He fired his defensive coordinator, perhaps hoping he could convince his father, Monte Kiffin, to come to Oakland. But Davis negated the firing.

Kiffin did not try to hide the fact that he was against drafting JaMarcus Russell. Davis went ahead and drafted him anyway. Kiffin did not want to play Russell. Davis insisted that Russell should start at quarterback.

In fact, when he finally fired Kiffin, Davis announced in a tirade disguised as a press conference: “I realized that you did not want to draft JaMarcus Russell. He is a great player. Get over it.”  

Kiffin did get over it—very quickly—and went to the University of Tennessee as the school's new head coach. There, Kiffin became the villainous Lane Kiffin, calling out all the powers that be in the Southeastern Conference almost as soon as he stepped off the plane in Knoxville.

Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Les Miles—they were all fair game. Even more than the battle of words was the war Kiffin waged for recruits. No recruit, whether committed or not, was off limits to Kiffin and his recruiting coordinator Ed Orgeron.

Kiffin’s approach was so aggressive that he acquired the nickname “Lane Violation,” a reference to a series of minor recruiting infractions that Kiffin’s staff racked up.

Now, here it is more than a year later, and Kiffin has landed his so-called “dream job” as head coach of the USC Trojans, where he served six years as an assistant to Pete Carroll, the legend he has recently replaced.

So, which Kiffin would show up in Los Angeles? The demonstrative Kiffin? The villainous one? Or the Carroll clone?

Actually, none of the above.

While many expected to see a continuation of the Carroll era, this has not been the case. The Trojans have not abandoned their West Coast offense. They still play the same 4-3 and Cover 2 defense that Carroll learned under Monte Kiffin’s tutelage.

However, a lot of other things have changed under the CEO-Taskmaster Lane Kiffin. Practices are longer, and the intensity is greater. Kiffin actually stopped practice on Tuesday and restarted it because the intensity wasn’t as high as it was in Saturday’s scrimmage.

Carroll’s open practices are a thing of the past. The crowds are thinner now that attendees must call a day in advance to secure a spot on the guest list. In addition, a beefed-up security staff patrols the sidelines during practices and also makes sure that no one is watching from atop the adjacent baseball stadium.

On the practice field, it is no longer fun and games that marked the Carroll era, unless those games are filled with intensity. Special teams coach John Baxter, for example, has a game called Survivor, named after the TV series, in which a running back tries to make it through a gauntlet of tacklers.

Kiffin has also announced that all positions are open, including the quarterback spot held by Matt Barkley. This has intensified the competition. Even those players that were previously in Carroll’s doghouse—namely C.J. Gable and Travon Patterson—have been unleashed, along with their competitive natures.

As one might expect, the injuries are mounting amid all the increased intensity. But Kiffin doesn’t seem to mind. Like all taskmasters, he feeds on discipline and demands an all-out effort. Injuries are a part of that effort. The guys that can play through their injuries are the guys that will be there in the fourth quarter, even if they are dinged up.

You would think that these players who came up in the Carroll era would be disappointed by the heavy dose of discipline and the demand for greater intensity. Instead, they seem to welcome and even thrive on it.

Although for most teams a 9-4 record is pretty decent, for USC, it was considered a disaster following seven consecutive years as Pac-10 champions and seven consecutive BCS Bowl appearances. 

Obviously, the players felt that things were too loose last season, too undisciplined. Their acceptance of the new staff and their willingness to meet their demands shows how much those four loses—especially the beatings at the hands of Stanford and Oregon—have hit home.

If there was ever a team ready for a change, it is this one. Even though players and fans alike cringed when Carroll announced that he was returning to the NFL, everyone now seems to agree that it was time for Carroll to leave.

Whether Kiffin has assumed yet another role or if this is his true personality coming through, doesn’t really matter. The important thing is this team desperately needed a disciplinarian and a taskmaster to get it back on track, and it seems to have found one.

Or, I should say, Mike Garrett has found one. Like Carroll, Kiffin was near the bottom of Garrett’s list. Fortunately, those above Kiffin turned Garrett down.

So, have Garrett and USC lucked out once again? We shall see.