Since this is my first official post, let me introduce myself a little bit before diving into the Lane Kiffin hiring. I'm a big USC fan, call me fair-weather or a bandwagon fan, but the truth is, when Reggie Bush was a senior in high school and in the Army All-American game, I was a team-less pre-teen who was falling in love with college football. The things that Reggie could do on the field were amazing, and at that moment I decided to jump head first into the world of USC football. I devoured everything I could about USC and it still wasn't enough. I memorized rosters, depth charts and coaching staffs. Many times I will be biased towards USC in any type of argument or column or blog but I will do my best to put my biases aside. So here we go...
I LOVE THE HIRING OF LANE KIFFIN!!!!
On the surface, bringing Lane Kiffin back to USC seemed like a desperate hire by Athletic Director Mike Garrett. Kiffin is a coach with more losses than wins (12-21) as well as many secondary recruiting violations from his time at the University of Tennessee. Kiffin needed to make a splash in the SEC, going up against the likes of Urban Meyer, Nick Saban and Les Miles, Kiffin needed to stick out and he did. He signed Bryce Brown in only a month on the job, he stole Nu'Keese Richardson from Florida, (no pun intended, Richardson was recently kicked off the team for attempted armed robbery) and he also stole Janzen Jackson from LSU on signing day.
More importantly than all of his recruiting coups in only a month at Tennessee, Lane is bringing his father, Monte Kiffin, arguably the greatest defensive coordinator in the history of football and Ed Orgeron, arguably the greatest recruiter in modern day college football. While the offensive coordinator position is still undecided since Norm Chow fell thru (for the record I didn't think Kiffin and Chow could co-exist, they are two offensive minded coaches that want the play calling abilities) I have faith that KIffin and Garrett will bring in someone that doesn't need to call plays and can recruit an area of the country with a great success rate.
Certainly with the pending NCAA sanctions coming against USC (we'll get into that during another post), taking the head coaching position is a certain risk right now and with the departure of Pete Carroll, USC needed someone that can continue Carroll's vision without changing too much, only re-polishing the once well oiled machine that failed to reach a BCS bowl game for the first time since 2002.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Phil, first of all I loved the perspective of USC football and the hiring of Lane Kiffin as many of the nation's sportswriters continue to question the decision by USC and Mike Garrett. As you have mentioned with Monte Kiffin and Ed Orgeron and the charisma Lane Kiffin has shown through 14 months at Tennessee how do you honestly feel the Men of Troy will fair in 2010?
ReplyDeleteThe PAC-10 is agruably the second toughest conference behind the SEC. Orgegon will be returning their go-juice in Jeremiah Masoli and LaMichael James who was one of the top tailbacks in the nation and a great 2010 recruiting class coming in.
Not to mention Stanford who was one of the teams to beat Oregon last year, to me, also look to be contenders for the PAC-10 title. Granted, Toby Gerhart is leaving for the NFL but with a coach in Jim Harbaugh who dials up a pro-style offense heavily committed to the run looks promising with young tailbacks Stepfan Taylor, Jeremy Stewart, and Tyler Gaffney. Andrew Luck the quarterback also looks to be prized to build off a successful freshman season as he played in 12 games, threw for 2,500 yards, and he is also one of the better scraamblers in the PAC-10 as he averaged 5.8 yards per carry. He also proved to be a good decision maker as he only threw 4 picks. With six 4-star recruits so far committed as well, I am not saying by any means to lock them up as the PAC-10 champs but I don't think this will be a push over team who if the opponents don't prepare for well enough they could be a top 3 team in the PAC-10.
I also see Washington being tough under Coach Steve Sarkisian bringin in six 4-star recruits as well and Jake Locker who was going to be one of the top picks if he were to enter this years draft. Also with explosive wide receiver Jermaine Kearse, I think the Huskies can contend.
With these three teams my question to you is how do you feel they will finish? Who would be the top candidates for the OC position and if Lane Kiffin wants to be a play caller why doesn't he become the OC as well?
Look forward to hearing from you, Mitchell20.