Lane Kiffin Says Tweets Recruiting Lamar Jackson to Florida Atlantic Were Jokes

Florida Atlantic head coach Lane Kiffin said tweets sent to Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson were meant to be a joke. 

"I was just scrolling through things," he told Gentry Estes of the Courier-Journal. "I just saw that highlight he had posted himself. So I thought it would be funny to see if he wanted to come home, which obviously, he's not."

In two tweets that have since been deleted, Kiffin responded to posts from Jackson urging him to come to Florida Atlantic:

As noted by Ben Kercheval of CBS Sports, Kiffin's attempts, joking or not, to recruit Jackson would be against NCAA rules. 

Speaking to Shandel Richardson of the Sun-Sentinel about his Twitter usage, Kiffin said he's doing it as a marketing tool to help build Florida Atlantic's brand and profile to recruits across the country. 

"That’s obviously part of the plan," he said. "It’s marketing. The more that you hear FAU … the more that you do really bad skits for whatever that was, it’s on SportsCenter and they’re talking about FAU."

Jackson is from Pompano Beach, Florida. Florida Atlantic University is located in Boca Raton, approximately 10 miles from Jackson's hometown. 

Kiffin is in his first season as head coach at Florida Atlantic. The Owls are 4-3 through seven games and are tied with Marshall atop the Conference USA East Division.