Peyton Manning on Lane Kiffin: Reading Between the Lines

When Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning was asked about (now) USC head coach Lane Kiffin on the Dan Patrick Show on August 23, he was a real class act.

He basically took the high road, but any Tennessee Volunteer fan or alumni could read between the lines of what the All-Pro quarterback was really saying.

When Peyton said, "It'd probably be a short conversation," he probably meant, "I want to sock him in the mouth."

And when Manning said, "I don't have anything personal against him," he probably meant, "I want to sock him in the mouth."

And then when he said, "Tennessee, as a whole group, was kind of hurt, our pride was hurt, we didn't think that Tennessee was a transition job," he probably meant that most of the state of Tennessee (with the exception of Vanderbilt) wants to sock Kiffin in the mouth.

And...

Honestly, what is USC thinking?  Kiffin was fired from his first head coaching job in the NFL (Raiders).  He pissed everyone in the SEC off with his shady recruiting practices.  And he left his team after only one year. 

Not to mention the fact that he's obviously opportunistic—what's to stop him from taking some other head coaching job that comes up (the Bears' Lovie Smith is on the hot seat this year.)?

Never mind the fact that he's yet to produce a legitimate contender as a head coach in college or the NFL.

Plus, with the way he hired Tennessee Titans running back coach Kennedy Pola, he's already started pissing off the USC alumni with Jeff Fisher.

The only thing Lane Kiffin's got going for him is his father, Monte Kiffin.  And if the Trojans wanted to get Monte to move to southern California, they should've offered him the head coaching job.