USC Fans: Gene Chizik Did a Better Job Than Lane Kiffin!

Look, USC fans. I have nothing against your program. I rooted against USC during the Pete Carroll era, but that was only because of the media's trashing the SEC to promote USC in 2003 and 2004, and because of the self-serving hypocritical behavior that Carroll himself indulged in (the best example of which was his disgraceful, unprecedented behavior in that Mark Sanchez's press conference).

Now, the BCS mess is over, with the SEC showing that the national media and its critics from 2003-2004 what a bunch of idiots they were. And further, Carroll is gone. So, my feelings toward USC have reverted to neutral...not caring one way or another.

So no, I don't blame USC for hiring Lane Kiffin. I do not blame Kiffin for taking the job. And I believe that Kiffin will outperform Carroll at USC, as great as Carroll was for that program.

My reasoning: Kiffin is a better defensive coach than Carroll, and Kiffin will correct the issues with a USC offense that has underachieved since Carroll forced out Norm Chow because he wanted more influence over the Trojans' offense and more credit for its success (result: despite all those 4 and 5 star recruits, USC hasn't had a 1000 rusher since Reggie Bush/LenDale White or a 1,000 yard receiver since Dwayne Jarrett/Steve Smith...all players who developed in Chow's system).

So, USC fans, you have a right to be excited over a coaching staff that will not only ultimately succeed, but I believe will begin to succeed immediately .

But USC fans, PLEASE stop claiming that Kiffin did these great, wonderful things in taking a 5-7 Tennessee team to a 7-5 record, because the simple fact is that he didn't.

Consider, for instance, how the SEC, and especially the SEC East, was stronger in 2008 than it was in 2009. (Case in point: the SEC was two plays away from having their first losing bowl record in years in 2009.)

Also, this was no lousy program decrepit of talent. That is the line peddled by Tennessee fans out of their jealousy of Urban Meyer and Nick Saban in order to justify getting rid of Philip Fulmer. The truth is that Tennessee went 10-4 and won the SEC East in 2008, and went 9-4 (and would have done even better had it not been for injuries) in 2007.

The Tennessee fans oversold how bad the program was to justify firing him. It wasn't that the program was woeful and without talent. It was that knew that Fulmer couldn't compete with Saban and Meyer, and that David Cutcliffe (his logical replacement) couldn't either.

Tennessee only went 5-7 in 2008 because (in large part to satisfy his critics) he unwisely attempted to shift from the pro-style offense they had been running ever since the Peyton Manning-era to a spread offense that Tennessee didn't have the talent for, and his hiring a I-AA coach to be his offensive coordinator. (I suppose that Fulmer was trying to emulate Oregon in hiring Chip Kelly, but he didn't realize Oregon had been running a version of the spread for years before Kelly was hired.)

And yes, Tennessee went 5-6 in 2005, but only because they lost their starting AND backup QBs to injury.

So, Fulmer was fired because Tennessee was no longer a top-10 program capable of competing with LSU, Alabama, and Florida, not because they were losing or falling off the map. They underachieved in 2008 not because of poor talent but of poor coaching.

If Cutcliffe had not left to take the Duke job, Tennessee would keep their pro-style offense—Eric Crompton and Montario Hardesty are very solid players—and Tennessee does a lot better than 5-7 in 2008. And if Tennessee replaces Fulmer with Cutcliffe instead of Kiffin, Tennessee does NO WORSE than 7-6 in 2009, and very likely does better.

People, this beaten-down, low-talent, falling-off-the-map team that Kiffin coaxed seven wins out of will have AT LEAST six players taken in the NFL draft, including likely top-12 draft picks Eric Berry and Dan Williams.

Of course, this is not to say that Kiffin did a bad job. He did a great job restoring  Crompton's confidence after the poor guy had to endure five different coordinators during his time at Tennessee (Randy Sanders, Cutcliffe, Clawson, then Kiffin) and even more impressively managed an effective running game despite a terrible offensive line.

Most impressively of all, Kiffin kept the team going despite his WR and LB units getting hammered with injuries. So Kiffin did a good, credible job in Nashville, one that makes you think that given superior talent, he will do even better.

But let's make it clear...a good credible job is all he did.

And that is even the case with recruiting. Hyping up Kiffin's "top-10 class" at Tennessee only shows the difference between the SEC and the Pac-10. The truth is that Philip Fulmer brought PLENTY of top-10 classes to Tennessee. (This is one of the things that Volunteer fans denied in their Saban-Meyer envy.)

As a matter of fact, Fulmer had already recruited a top-10 class before he was fired. Kiffin only finished it off, and furthermore Kiffin made the class WORSE by running off a five-star QB (Tajh Boyd) and a four-star RB (who wound up at UCLA).

But the bottom line is that bringing in a top-10 class at Tennessee or any other top SEC school is no big deal. Quite the contrary, Tennessee's class was ranked only No. 5 in the SEC, behind Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and LSU. And had Kiffin stayed, his class THIS YEAR would have been behind Florida, Alabama, LSU, and AUBURN.

That's right, Auburn, which brings us to the title of this post.

For all the hype that USC fans give Kiffin for his great job at Tennessee, Gene Chizik did a better one at Auburn. Similar to Kiffin and Tennessee, Chizik came to Auburn with a losing record as a head coach in a hire that was even more controversial. And similar to Kiffin, Auburn went 5-7 the previous year and had an absolutely brutal offense that was due in part to a failed attempt to put in the spread by hiring a small college head coach as offensive coordinator (Tony Franklin of Troy).

But the fact is Chizik did a better job at Auburn than Kiffin at Tennessee. Chizik's first recruiting class wasn't as good as Kiffin's, true. But the reason for this is that A) unlike Fulmer at Tennessee, Tommy Tuberville wasn't working on a top-10 and possible top-five class and B) Kiffin had a much longer head start.

But Chizik's SECOND class finished ranked No. 4. And Chizik got this done despite being in the shadow of Alabama, LSU, and Georgia (all of whom generally recruit better than Auburn due to being the No. 1 schools in their talent-rich states) and without humiliating himself and his program, without trashing other schools, coaches and players, without denigrating small towns with 40 percent unemployment rates, without racking up secondary violations left and right, and without targeting players at other schools that his own program didn't even need and luring them away with negative recruiting (like starting FALSE rumors about how the NCAA was about to hammer Alabama and LSU).

He didn't have to rent helicopters to fly into high school games (a tactic that didn't land Kiffin a single recruit by the way), and he didn't have to look the other way while female "hostesses" lured players. The reason: those tactics have NEVER been necessary at one of the SEC's "Big 6" programs.

Fulmer didn't need them to get Heath Shuler, Peyton Manning, Tee Martin, John Henderson, Albert Haynesworth, Jamal Lewis, or any of the other guys that he used to make Tennessee a top-five program in the 1990s, and his predecessor Johnny Majors didn't need them to land Reggie White or any of the other players that made the Vols a top-10 program during the 1980s.

But that's off the field. What about on it?

Well, despite competing in the much tougher SEC West (which had five of the SEC's six teams to actually win a bowl game, and three of the SEC's four ranked teams) and playing its first 11 games without a bye week (Auburn's only bye week was before the Alabama game), Auburn went 8-5.

Yes, Auburn did lose to a desperate Georgia team that Tennessee clobbered. Big deal. Unlike Tennessee, Auburn logged two quality non-conference wins (Northwestern and West Virginia), Auburn beat Ole Miss (who hammered Tennessee 42-17) and—oh yes—Auburn beat Kiffin and Tennessee, and did so in Knoxville.

To do so, Auburn needed a similar offensive overhaul. Except that where Tennessee had the former five-star recruit and future NFL draft pick at QB in Crompton, Auburn had to make do with the mid-major talent Chris Todd, who was immobile and had the weakest arm of any SEC QB last year.

Todd wound up with a very credible 2,600 passing yards and 22 TDs, with WR Darvin Adams setting school records. Any way you slice it, Auburn had a better record with lesser talent against a tougher schedule. (Auburn didn't play Florida, but Tennessee didn't play LSU, and the healthy LSU team who that beat Auburn 31-10 and was leading Alabama on the road until their star RB Charles Scott got hurt would have beaten Tennessee easily.)

And let's go back to the recruiting issue.

For all the bluster and the ridiculous tactic of trying to lure players that he really didn't need from Florida, LSU, Alabama, and Tennessee, Kiffin actually failed to address Tennessee's biggest needs: QB and OL . After running off a five-star QB who would have started as a redshirt freshman next year in Knoxville in Tahj Boyd, Kiffin failed to land a single high profile QB recruit, whiffing on everyone that he went after.

He was reduced to swiping San Diego State commit Tyler Bray (according to Rivals, Bray's only other offer was Fresno) and signing a lightly regarded JUCO. Kiffin only signed three OL in 2010 (two four-stars—including one that he got by lying to the kid by claiming Alabama was facing major NCAA sanctions—and a three-star).

Kiffin also didn't actually recruit a single OL in 2009...the three OL in that class had already committed to Fulmer, and Kiffin failed to land any of the other OLs that Fulmer had given offers to.

Now Chizik only signed two OL in 2009, but remember the guy had a much later start due to his being hired five weeks later than Kiffin. The difference: one of the two guys Chizik signed in 2009 was actually a Chizik recruit. But the real difference: Chizik signed SIX OL recruits in 2010, including a four-star California JUCO star who picked Auburn over Oklahoma, Arizona, and Cal and will be Auburn's starting left tackle next season.

QB: more of the same. Despite being a defensive coach, Chizik landed three QBs in his 2009 class, and they all were HIS GUYS, including a four-star recruit from Texas (where Auburn has rarely gotten any prospects, let alone four-star ones) and a couple of dual threat Alabama prospects that fit Gus Malzahn's spread offense.

In 2010, Auburn only got one QB. However, with three prospects in the prior class, five-star JUCO recruit Cameron Newton was all they needed. Auburn school record-setting WR Darvin Adams will join Chizik recruits RB Onterrio McCaleb, RB Dontae Aycock, and Newton to give Auburn easily their best offense since their 13-0 team in 2004.

Now that isn't saying much as "offensive powerhouse" and "Auburn" have rarely been used in the same sentence, but when you consider that Chizik was the defensive coordinator of both the 13-0 2004 Auburn team and the 13-0 2005 Texas team the next season (yes, that's right USC fans, the Texas team that ended your run) as good or better than that 2004 team on offense is all they need to be.

I say this not to hype Auburn as some future powerhouse. Quite the contrary, Chizik may wind up having to replace both his coordinators within two years: Malzaln because he is a future head coach and the defensive coordinator Ted Roof because he is a much better recruiter than coach.

Instead, I use him to point out that Kiffin's initial season at Tennessee was what it was: mediocre. Saban had a better initial season at LSU. Mark Richt had a better initial season at Georgia. Houston Nutt had better initial seasons at Arkansas AND Ole Miss. Steve Spurrier had a better initial season at Florida. And oh yes, Philip Fulmer had a better initial season at Tennessee.

I believe that Kiffin will do a great job for USC. But please, stop pretending that he did for Tennessee, Trojans fans. He didn't, and it wasn't even close.

For my money, Kiffin was probably only the third best rookie coach in the SEC. Dan Mullen, who took Mississippi State to a 5-7 record against the toughest schedule in the country (poor MSU played Kentucky, Arkansas, Auburn, Houston, Ole Miss, LSU, Georgia Tech, Florida, and Alabama) against which Kiffin and Tennessee would have gone 4-8 at best.