USC has hired Lane Kiffin to replace Pete Carroll as head coach.
The Lane Kiffin who won 5 games in a season and a half as head coach of the Oakland Raiders. The Lane Kiffin whom Tennessee made the highest-paid coach in college football, and who took the Vols to a 7-6 record and a slew of NCAA secondary violations. That Lane Kiffin.
Kiffin was an assistant to Carroll at USC during the Reggie Bush/OJ Mayo years, so it's not like USC has the best ethical track record either. So, program with no scruples meets coach with no scruples. Perfect. (Kiffin's also taking with him his father, defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin (who previously ditched the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and assistant/recruiting coordinator Ed Orgeron (who - tangent - recruited Michael Oher to play at Ole Miss).
Michael Rosenburg at SI.com ripped Kiffin and USC in his column today, while the New York Times tracked down a Tennessee recruit:
Brandon Willis, a defensive lineman from James F. Byrnes High School in Duncan, S.C., was on his way Tuesday to enroll at Tennessee when he heard that Kiffin had been hired at U.S.C., said his father, Gary Willis. He said Orgeron called him after Kiffin’s hiring was announced and said that U.S.C. was “a dream job” for him and the Kiffins. Willis said Orgeron told him that his son was being offered a scholarship to U.S.C.
“You can’t just follow guys like that,” Gary Willis said in a telephone interview. “That’s not what I’m teaching my son.”
Willis and his son were evaluating his 42 scholarship offers Tuesday, but were still bothered by Kiffin’s sudden departure.
“To sit down and tell people stuff and then turn around and do what you do, I don’t like the way it was done, but I can’t control it,” Willis said.
Yup.
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