The Contrasts in Kiffin Hiring are what’s Compelling

Best and Worst Case Scenarios in Kiffin hiring are as far apart as possible.

I love this Lane Kiffin hire.  It’s absolutely perfect in the high stakes, emotion filled world of college football.  Add to that the fact that it will play itself out in LA and you have the perfect storm of hype, drama, and real life all blending together.  It’s a storyline straight out of HBO’s Entourage, complete with protagonists, antagonists (but who plays what role is not clear), millions of dollars, power brokers, and very pretty girls.  The USC football drama is the best thing on Television right now and the conclusion to this season’s series is as up in the air as is possible.

I can envision a best case and worst case scenario for this situation that are as contrasted as Knoxville and Hollywood, but I have no idea which is more likely to play out.

Best Case

Lane Kiffin shows up at USC with a NFL caliber coaching staff and immediately restores USC to perennial National Championship contender.  With Monte Kiffen at defensive coordinator and Norm Chow guiding the offense, blue chip recruits flock to the Trojans as they did under Pete Carroll.  With legitimate coordinator superstars calling the plays, the Trojans dominate the Pac 10 and string together multiple 10 win seasons with Rose Bowls and National Championships to boot.

This is not that far fetched.  With Monte Kiffin running the defense – and the cupboard stocked full of first round NFL talent – it is not difficult to imagine a Trojan defense that ranks amongst the best in the country.  Further, with Norm Chow returning to the place of his greatest achievements, to take control of a Trojan offense that has a talented young QB, a solid offensive line, and an embarrassment of  incoming blue-chip talent, it is not hard to fathom the Trojan Juggernaut returning to the days of Leinart, Bush, and White.

To all that you add Lane Kiffin, the once recruiting coordinator turned head coach who knows Southern California like the back of his hand.  Along with recruiting dynamo Ed Orgeron, Kiffin can embark on a mission to reap #1 recruiting classes every single year – selling his dad’s defense, Norm Chow’s offense, and the promise of a first round draft pick.

USC’s best cast scenario is in fact a dream.  It couldn’t be better.  As the aging Carroll moves on to bigger and better things (in his mind at least), the young protege returns to take his place.  Kiffin is younger, his wife is hotter, and his star has the potential to be brighter.  The staff he brings with him makes him nothing less than college football’s Vincent Chase – arriving in LA with an Entourage sure to be the envy of the rest of the country.

Worst Case

Lane Kiffin shows up at USC already the subject of an independent NCCA rules investigation for his one year at Tennessee.  Kiffin, as you may remember, also committed numerous secondary violations while coaching the Volunteers which means in 14 short months he managed to go completely sideways on the NCAA rulebook and piss someone at the NCAA off enough to launch an investigation.

When he arrives at USC, he walks onto the campus of an institution that is neck-deep in NCAA investigations itself.  Both the Trojans football and basketball programs are under scrutiny for a variety of alleged misdeeds.  The football program in particular is mired in an investigation into activity that occurred during Pete Carroll’s tenure.  But here’s the best part – Kiffin himself was on USC’s staff as offensive coordinator and recruiting coordinator during the time period in which USC is alleged to have broken the rules.

So you have Kiffin who is under investigation for his actions while coach at Tennessee,  you have USC under investigation for alleged rule violations within its football program as it relates to such superstars as Reggie Bush, and you have the fact that Kiffin himself was employed at USC during a majority of the timeframe that they are being investigated for.

Add to all of that the reports that are coming out of Knoxville that Ed Orgeron, a fellow Volunteer defector who is following Kiffin to USC, was busy last night trying to convince Tennessee recruits (and early enrollees) to spurn the Vols and come to USC.  It’s a surreal set of circumstances.

Thus – the NCAA – tired of Kiffin’s act and really tired of the hubris and disregard for its authority that USC and its athletic director Mike Garrett have displayed, decide enough is enough.  Killing two birds with one stone the NCAA slams the USC football program, levying devastating sanctions on the Trojans.

For the misdeeds during Carroll’s era, in many of which Kiffin played a role, USC is at fault.  For Kiffin’s violations as Tennessee’s head coach, Kiffin is at fault (and USC, hiring him with knowledge of the investigation, assumed the risk that Kiffin would be sanctioned).  For the manner in which Kiffin, Orgeron, and company exited Tennessee after only one season – burning every bridge and pillaging every village – the NCAA finds more violations occurred (for which USC, the institution on whose behalf Kiffin and Orgeron were working, is at fault).  And finally, for USC’s athletic director Mike Garrett,  who presided over two programs at USC that have been out of control for years.  Who allowed Rodney Guillory and OJ Mayo onto USC’s campus.  Who failed to monitor the lifestyle’s of USC’s football superstars.  Who had the chutzpa to go hire Lane Kiffin from Tennessee despite knowledge of all of the above.  For Mr. Garrett, the NCAA has a special finding.  That he and his athletic department lack institutional control.  That his actions as USC athletic director display a level of ego and arrogance that is unrivaled in major college sports.  That it appears that he forgot that he is subject to the rules like everybody else.

What I’m saying is, I can conceive a situation where Lane Kiffin never coaches a down for USC.  Where the NCAA finally gets fed up with USC and brings a gun to the parties’ scheduled knife fight (or sanctions hearing)  next month.   Hammering the program with sanctions and suspending Kiffin from coaching (ie Kelvin Sampson).  When you look at all the circumstances surrounding USC right now, they are blatantly challenging the NCAA’s authority and banking on the fact that the NCAA won’t call them on it.

All in all, as a sports fan with an affiliation to the Pac 10, I can’t wait to see how this plays out.  Will Lane “Vince Chase” Kiffin play the role of Aquaman and bring USC’s football program from the depths (hey- it’s all relative, with USC 9-4 and the Emerald Bowl is the depths), or will Kiffin’s Chase character be that of Pablo Escobar in  Medellin, in which Chase’s career is almost destroyed as the movie is an utter flop.  Only time will tell.