Kiffin Tells Sports Illustrated He Fired Folks… Only It’s Not True

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One quick note before we get into the meat of this post:

Lane Kiffin is going to be good for my business.  Though I’m already sick of writing about the guy (could Gene Chizik or Dan Mullen please say something?), Kiffin is absolutely the barkingest dog in the SEC kennel.

If he wins, Tennessee fans will eat it up and throw monkey poop at their conference rivals.  If he loses, it will be a Hindenburg-type explosion.

There’s going to be no in-between on this guy. 

He’ll either be a grand slam, walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth… or a swing-and-a-miss strikeout that leaves the hitter butt-down in the batter’s box.

Why?

Well, on top of all the other comments, barbs, brags and verbal jousts, Kiffin has now said things to Sports Illustrated that weren’t exactly accurate.

For example, Kiffin said that he was picked up about 25 minutes late at the Knoxville airport after returning from California to witness the birth of his son.

“I came back and within five minutes I’d fired the guy who was in charge of the guy who’d been sent to pick me up.”

Just one small problem with that:  athletic director Mike Hamilton said that didn’t happen.  Another UT rep said that Kiffin had changed his mind about the firing after he spoke with Sports Illustrated’s writer.

Oh.

And Kiffin also told the mag that he’s blown up several secretaries (secretaries!). 

“You can’t count the number of people we’ve run off because they couldn’t keep up, and I’m including secretaries.  They had to go because they weren’t going to make it, and they knew it.”

Yowza.

Turns out, Hamilton said only two secretaries have been re-assigned… one of them going to Phillip Fulmer’s new on-campus office (even though Fulmer isn’t officially working for UT).

For the full story, check out The Knoxville News Sentinel’s John Adams’ column right here.

For my take on all of this… here you go:

1)  What kind of guy brags about firing people?  Even if he really has fired them, is that the kind of person you’d want to work for?

2)  Don’t Kiffin’s comments about the UT support staff say a whole lot about the regime Fulmer oversaw?  I’ll once again say that Kiffin, no matter what he’s said publicly, has no desire to sit down and pick the brain of his predecessor.  No wonder the old coach took a shot at UT on signing day.

3)  Kiffin called Urban Meyer a cheat when Meyer had actually broken no rules at all.  Then, on a radio show, he supposedly questioned Georgia’s ability to keep in-state recruits at home (though he’d already tried to hire the Bulldogs’ recruiting coordinator, Rodney Garner).  And now he’s talked about firing folks when his AD said, “He has not fired anybody.  If he said he has fired somebody, that’s not true.”

Let me see, what was it Al Davis said about Kiffin that everyone laughed at back in September?

Oh yeah, Davis called him a “flat-out liar.” 

Hmmm.  Tennessee fans will no doubt back their coach (as any SEC fanbase would back their own coach).  And the Tennessee media will give Kiffin the benefit of the doubt… as they should.

But the more I see/hear of Mr. Kiffin, the more I start to wonder if crazy Al Davis might not have been too crazy when it came to his Kiffin comments after all.

And on a final note, how tired must Hamilton already be of having to back-pedal, soft-sell, and debunk Kiffin’s inflammatory statements day after day after day?