Lane Kiffin Has SEC Fans Itching For September

Brought in to ignite a fallen college football giant, Lane Kiffin has spent nearly every waking hour since being hired as head coach at the University of Tennessee straddling the line between enthusiasm and ignorance. 

Kiffin has started verbal feuds with the biggest names and most dominant programs in the Southeastern Conference which have led to numerous public apologies and embarrassing situations for himself and the program.  His outlandish and immature actions have put a target on the back of each and every one of his players for this upcoming season.

Targets are usually reserved for the reigning heavyweights of a league.  Never before has a team coming off of a dismal 5-7 season drawn such hatred and anger from division rivals.  With trips to places like Tuscaloosa and Gainesville on the schedule, Kiffin has likely thrown his still talent-deficient team into a whirlwind that will punish them severely all season.

It did not have to be like this.

Kiffin could have easily come in, lit an intense fire into his team that has simply not been there through the latter parts of the Fulmer regime, kept his mouth shut about other programs, and gotten just as positive of results in the recruiting arena. 

After all, Tennessee is not currently the powerhouse program that has leverage to push publicly at other administrations or bully rivals into a corner.  In the world of southeastern football, they are no Alabama, no Florida, no Georgia, and lately are not even comparable to LSU, South Carolina, or Ole Miss (where Houston Nutt is quietly building a seriously commendable team). 

What would have been the harm in waiting a year or two, gaining some respect on the field, and then being more vocal in your opinions of other schools?

The answer is that the idea of a humble approach is simply not Kiffin's style.  From day one, he wanted to make a splash and draw publicity, whether it is good or bad, to the team, but more specifically, to himself. 

Maybe it was their similarities that made Lane and Al Davis such a horrible match after all.

Kiffin wants the fire back in Knoxville that many felt was lost during the friendly, mediocre Phillip Fulmer era.  However, what he has instead done is light a fire in all of the wrong places.  His fire quickly fled to places where rabid fans and teams that are still physically superior to his own will be waiting.  Not too bad of an accomplishment for someone who already has more NCAA violations (four) than wins at the college level. 

College football is an addiction in the south and feuds like we have seen this off-season are the football equivalent of throwing a bottle of Jim Beam in front of a recovering alcoholic or a cigarette to a recent quitter.  For football-starved citizens of Columbia, Tuscaloosa, Gainesville and Athens, the season is still a dreadful five months away, but the thought of getting to finally stick it to the new guy with the big mouth just makes the build-up that much sweeter.