Are Tennessee Fans Too Lenient with Kiffin?

If I were a young, brand new head coach headed into the SEC, and one of America's most prominent football programs, then I think that I would play it safe before my first real test by keeping a bit of a low profile. Obviously, Lane Kiffin and I don't think alike.

The antics of Mr. Kiffin include

• Many recruiting violations
• Calling out Florida for cheating they never committed
• Telling a South Carolina recruit that if he attended USC he would end up pumping gas for a living
• Antagonizing the family of a recruit that did not pick Tennessee
• Using a fog machine...yes, a fog machine, to introduce a recruit
• Many other things, some I'm not sure of the credibility of, so I won't include them, although they may be true

Now, let's say this happened at ASU, or Alabama. Well, I wouldn't be too happy with my coach, and you'd think that maybe Vol nation wouldn't be too happy about all of this negative publicity, but amazingly the majority of them are taking the "any publicity is good publicity" stance when it comes to Kiffin.

Kiffin calls out Florida for cheating. Vol response: "Well they probably are, I love the energy he brings at his FIRST public engagement!"

Kiffin uses a fog machine (I still can't get over this) to introduce a recruit. Vol response: "Wow! That never happened under Fulmer! I love this guy!"

Kiffin tells a recruit he will pump gas for a living if he goes to USC: "You gotta love how spices things up! Go Vols!"

And on, and on, and on...

Now, this doesn't include all of the Tennessee fans, but frequenting message boards and reading "Rocky Top Talk", it's clear that this is the train of thought of a lot of Volunteer's. My Question is simple: Why?

Why support a coach who flies off the handle accusing people of cheating that never did? Why support a coach who is so outlandish he will use a fog machine to introduce a recruit? Why support someone who rips their shirts off in front of recruits and encourages the recruits to do the same? It doesn't make sense.

If this happened at ASU or Alabama, I sure wouldn't support it, would you? And why do the vols?