Wrong Move Slive: Commish Shuts Up SEC Gab-Fest

For all that Saturday's Florida-Tennessee showdown wasn't, the aftermath promised to be. Until Southeastern Conference Commissioner Mike Slive stepped in.

The long-anticipated meeting of Urban Meyer and Lane Kiffin - the grizzled veteran, by SEC standards, vs. the newcomer - failed to live up to expectations. Tens of thousands of viewers who couldn't care less about the Gators or the Vols watched CBS's telecast with baited breath Saturday afternoon, awaiting the promised blood-bath at Florida's Ben Griffin Hill Stadium; awaiting the brash young coach's turn before the chopping block as he faced atonement for his off-season transgressions.

What they got was, well, rather dull. The 23-13 Florida win was a grudge match of typical SEC fashion. But Saturday wasn't supposed to be about good old-fashioned SEC football. It was supposed to be annihilation; the culmination of nine months of buildup that began with Kiffin vowing to sing Rocky Top "all night" after beating the Gators in The Swamp, and escalated when he accused Meyer of a rules violation in the recruitment of Pahokee, Fla. prized receiver Nu'Keese Richardson (who later signed with Kiffin's Vols).

The main event was boring. The war of words that followed was shaping up to be anything but. Whether it was the frustration of "only" winning 23-13 - Tennessee fans declared that their coaches had out-schemed Meyer's staff, while the Florida faithful snickered about UT's moral victory - or whether it was something completely different, Meyer finally did something he had managed to avoid all off-season: He stepped in it. Unprovoked.

Meyer essentially accused Tennessee of playing to avoid a big loss rather than playing to win.

"When I saw them start handing the ball off, you didn't feel like they were going after the win," Meyer said, referring to Kiffin's play-calling after cornerback Dennis Rogan recovered a Tim Tebow fumble in the fourth quarter with the Vols trailing 23-6.

"I remember looking out there and there's 10 minutes left and there's no no-huddle . . . no urgency," Meyer said.

He went on to add that his team was forced to play conservative after several players were stricken with flu-like illness.

Kiffin, whose team had entered the game as 29-point underdogs, took exception.

"This off-season, [Commissioner Slive] made a big deal of renewing vows in terms of what we say about other teams and other players," Kiffin said. "Obviously, Urban feels he doesn't need to follow that."

When asked if he had concerns of a flu outbreak among his players, Kiffin took the bait. "We'll wait and see," he said, "and after we're not excited about our performance we'll tell you that everybody was sick."

Zing! Vol fans cyber-chest-bumped one another as Kiffin's words were quickly distributed via blogs and message boards. Gators rolled their eyes and said the boy wonder obviously hadn't learned to keep his mouth shut.

But the reaction of either team's fan base aside, it was good fuel for the rivalry that has been the league's premier battle since expanding to 12 teams in 1992.

And what's good for the conference's best rivalry is good for the conference.

Kiffin's comments were a throwback to the '90s, when then-Florida coach Steve Spurrier quipped that you couldn't spell Citrus (as in Bowl) without U-T, a reference to the second-tier bowl that the Vols repeatedly wound up in after falling victim to the Gators each September.

Then Slive stepped in. USA Today confirmed Wednesday that Slive had contacted each school. His apparent message: Knock it off. By Wednesday evening, it appeared that both Meyer and Kiffin had agreed to cool their heels.

Instead of getting involved, perhaps Slive should've taken notes on Kiffin's strategy.

Within eight weeks of arriving in Knoxville, Kiffin had managed to offend each of the SEC's most respected coaches. There was the infamous (and false) cheating accusation lobbed at Meyer, boasting of stealing the best recruiter from Nick Saban's Alabama staff, and the trading of barbs with the Ol' Ball Coach at South Carolina.

Kiffin would later say that his actions were necessary to put Tennessee back on the map. Maybe there's something to that. Despite coming off an SEC Championship Game appearance in 2007, Phillip Fulmer's last recruiting class at Tennessee was ranked No. 35 in the nation by Rivals.Com. With Tennessee coming off a dismal 5-7 season and with only weeks on the job, Kiffin and his staff put together the No. 10 recruiting class in the nation when the ink on the letters of intent had dried in February. UT's 2010 recruiting class is currently ranked third nationally by Scout.Com.

The same holds true for the conference as a whole: A little lashing out breeds publicity. And in the dog-eat-dog world of college football, publicity is almost always good. Unless your name is George O'Leary or Mike Price.

With the rest of the college football world focused on the verbal dual between Meyer and Kiffin, the SEC remained in the limelight in a week that features no premier conference matchup; in a week that finds Florida preparing for its 23rd consecutive win over Kentucky and Tennessee preparing for - yawn - Ohio.

As long as Slive stands on the sideline and lets the harmless sparring match play out, ESPN and the rest of the sports media are more than willing to provide a breathless, blow-by-blow recount to football fans (and, more importantly, football recruits) across the nation. Some would have inevitably declared Kiffin a punk and sided with Meyer and the Gators, while others would have called Meyer a jerk and pledged loyalty to Kiffin and the Vols. Either way, it would be the SEC dominating the talk, while the rest of the BCS conferences jockeyed for position in the background.

What’s the worst that could’ve happened? Kiffin suggesting you can’t spell flu without U-F?