In Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the “powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity” wafts through the Mississippi night. During this weekend’s Lane Kiffin soap opera, mendacity was the order of the day from Oxford to Baton Rouge.
Over just a few weeks, Kiffin nuked his carefully rebuilt image. On the cusp of the College Football Playoff, he quit on his Ole Miss players to defect to LSU. But Big Daddy Lane had help as other key players humiliated themselves in the court of public opinion. Left out of the equation, of course, were the players who trusted Kiffin’s promises and the fans who pay everybody’s salaries.
Here’s a power ranking of three of the biggest hypocrites in the tawdry saga, which resulted in another black eye for college football:
Lane Kiffin: We were told the coach who burned his bridges with Tennessee, USC, Alabama, and the Oakland Raiders had changed, matured. But guess what? Kiffin is going to Kiffin. The coach whom Al Davis called “a professional liar” wants to have his cake and eat it, too. If you want to walk out on your team for a better opportunity at LSU, go ahead. But don’t tell Ole Miss you still want to coach the team through the College Football Playoff. And don’t threaten to raid the coaching staff and roster on the way out unless you get your way. No wonder the Rebels threw Kiffin’s clothes out on the street.
It took Kevin Negandhi of ESPN to state what should have been obvious from the get-go: It’s a conflict of interest for one coach to effectively run two football programs at the same time. Did anybody really believe Monday’s ridiculous LSU press conference, where Kiffin said he doesn’t know how much he’ll make as Tigers coach? (Answer: $91 million over seven years.) About the only truth coming out of the stated performance was that super-agent Jimmy Sexton is the puppet master of college football. Super Bowl–winning coach Bill Cowher panned Kiffin’s behavior during an appearance with Dan Patrick. “Are you kidding me? Seriously? To even ask that question is arrogance,” said Cowher about Kiffin’s request to coach the Rebels through the CFP. “I think what happened there is a disgrace to the coaching profession. The coaching profession is about developing young men—it’s not about chasing the greener grass to somewhere else. Being an ambulance chaser.”
Nick Saban: The irascible coach dented his new, more likable image as a TV analyst and elder statesman by advising his former Alabama assistant on the move to LSU. As my Front Office Sports colleague Amanda Christovich asked: Why is a College GameDay analyst advising Kiffin on a decision that will reshape college football? Why was Saban running cover for Kiffin on GameDay? When Christovich reached out to ESPN (which, by the way, holds the TV rights to the SEC), it declined to comment. On the other hand, maybe Saban is the perfect guy to ask since he lied through his teeth about leaving the Miami Dolphins for the Alabama job back in 2007. If the old saw is true about college coaches only lying when their lips are moving, these two are made for each other. At least Saban admitted later he was full of it when he denied interest in the Crimson Tide. Will Kiffin do the same?
Gov. Jeff Landry: What happened to the Louisiana governor who went on a scorched-earth media tour decrying fired Tigers coach Brian Kelly’s $54 million buyout. The next LSU coach would have a “patently different contract,” vowed Landry. Oops. Kiffin’s potential buyout of $72 million would be bigger than Kelly’s. No matter. The governor is waving pom-poms for Kiffin’s hire, excitedly telling Fox News, “All I can tell you is we got a great big, beautiful Lane coming to LSU now.” Can you smell what’s coming out of LSU? That would be the unforgettable odor of mendacity.
