Kiffin deserves respect from USC


As of Tuesday, the NCAA sanctions on USC’s athletic programs have expired. After four years of being hamstrung by a two-year postseason ban, scholarship limitations and the vacating of a Heisman Trophy, as well as the 2004 BCS National Championship and all of their victories in 2005, the USC football team is now free from its NCAA-imposed bureaucratic imprisonment.

Opinions on the NCAA’s sanctions on USC range from the uninformed (such as our cross-town rival’s mantra, “they cheated”) to the more outspoken (ESPN.com’s Ted Miller called it “the most egregious miscarriage of justice in the history of NCAA enforcement”). History has judged, and will continue to judge, the Trojans more favorably in the aftermath of the sanctions. This will be due in part to the severity of the sanctions in comparison to the lighter treatment of concurrent non-complying schools, and the fact that more evidence of the NCAA’s maliciously punitive intent in its handling of the case will come to light when the defamation suit filed against the organization by former USC running backs coach Todd McNair is settled once and for all.

The Los Angeles Times published a series of articles earlier this week dealing with the issue of sanctions, and covered the gamut of USC sanction topics. The major headline was former USC head coach and current Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll stating in an interview with the L.A. Times that had he known about the severity of the sanctions, he would have stayed to help USC through them.

The timing of Carroll’s departure is well-documented, and it’s doubtful any person in Carroll’s position would have given up $35 million and the full range of personnel decisions that Carroll was offered up north to return to a school facing a two-year postseason ban and a massive reduction in scholarships. The fact is that Carroll, who is still revered by the vast majority of the USC community (including myself), didn’t stay for the sanctions.

Lane Kiffin, however, did. Kiffin was escaping some Southern heat when he was making his return to his old stomping grounds, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was Kiffin who got USC through the roughest patch of sanctions. The argument against remembering Kiffin’s legacy in his time at USC is simple: The coach failed to lead a team with monumental expectations and a preseason No. 1 ranking to the national title, much less a bowl game. And then in the next season, Kiffin’s team suffered gut-wrenching losses to Pac-12 doormat Washington State and gave up 62 points to Arizona State.

What many of the Trojan faithful fail to recall, however, is that Kiffin righted the ship in the face of extreme adversity and uncertainty in his second year with the team in 2011. Fans were not permitted to wallow in the misery of a postseason ban, a thinned-out roster or scholarship reductions. There were no “Free ’SC” t-shirts that rued the NCAA sanctions. There were, however, “USC 50, UCLA 0” t-shirts. The Trojans did as Trojans do: They didn’t feel sorry for themselves, they just went right on pretending the sanctions didn’t exist and threw their own postseason party.

When former USC quarterback Matt Barkley announced he would return for his senior season (a move that would eventually prove fatal to his draft stock), expectations ran high and the nation was bullish on a Pac-12-SEC showdown between the Trojans and Alabama. But here’s where things got murky — there was no way that USC would be able to repeat its dominance after losing an eventual NFL Pro Bowl-caliber offensive lineman in Matt Kalil and elite defensive end Nick Perry in the 2012 NFL Draft. The defensive schemes and offensive line were constantly maligned throughout the Trojans’ ill-fated 2012 campaign, and Darth Visor shouldered much of the blame. The only comparison that comes close to mirroring Kiffin’s situation at USC was Bill O’Brien’s tenure with Penn State. O’Brien took a heavily sanctioned Penn State team in the wake of scandal to records of 8-4 and 7-5. O’Brien was not unceremoniously fired in the parking lot of an airport — he ended up taking up a job as head coach of the Houston Texans in 2013.

Kiffin’s unique brand of gamesmanship didn’t do anything to help the perception of USC as being a program focused on gaining all possible advantages. But Kiffin weathered a scholarship reduction to haul in a top-20 recruiting class in both 2011 and 2012 despite being at a significant disadvantage. He managed to coach his players at a high level in the face of aggressive NCAA compliance efforts and restrictions.

The coach’s farsighted stratagems, however, were eventually his own undoing: by performing so brilliantly under sanctions, Kiffin raised expectations of a thinned-out roster to perilous, even unreasonable levels. When he was fired in the middle of the 2013 season following the aforementioned humiliating losses to Washington State and ASU, few were sad to see him go.

Looking back on the course of the sanctions, more people will remember Lane Kiffin as the coach who continued to run more bubble screens and running plays when the Washington State defense was loading up the edges. Few will realize that these play calls were focused on shortening the overall game clock to preserve an offensive line and defense that was growing thin not only due to scholarship reductions, but also due to injury. Success in college football coaching, like most things in life, is dictated not by one’s past successes, but by the mantra of “what have you done for me lately?” Here’s what Lane Kiffin did: he was the coach who led the Trojans during one of the most trying times in the program’s history. He left a cupboard full of five-star recruits and managed to lift the spirits of a school in NCAA-imposed turmoil.

If USC remembers anything about the NCAA sanctions, it should be that Lane Kiffin wasn’t the coach USC wanted at the time, but that he was the coach who was there when the Trojans needed one most.

 

Euno Lee is a senior majoring in English literature. He is also editor-in-chief of the Daily Trojan. His column, “Euno What Time It Is,” runs Wednesdays.

 

8 replies
  1. John Lister
    John Lister says:

    I did not like him as the OC, much less the HC. On the other hand, he took a tough job and he knew it was coming. He was not afraid of a challenge. I will always defend him as one of the great recruiters ever (and we all know there are some pretty awesome recruiters) especially in light of what he was selling; a great tradition but lots of baggage.

  2. Chris Rey
    Chris Rey says:

    You forgot to mention how overbearing he was to everyone under him, once he saw some success and figured he was untouchable and became that douche that the entire nation still sees. From everyone I’ve spoken to, many people in HH said he wasn’t easy to deal with and Kennedy Polumalu(who is a real Trojan) would probably agree. Many players were relieved he left since he played favorites, and where would Buck Allen be if he were still around?

  3. E L
    E L says:

    Kiffin was a distraction and an abomination. He let himself and his father nearly ruin a great team chocked full of blue-chip 4& 5 star talent that was either already on the squad or born dreaming about becoming a Trojan. Monte Kiffin should have been fired after year two, but his son made up excuses to keep him on and that led Sr. Kiffin staying on to lead the 3 worst defensive teams under his system in the history of USC football.

    Lane mismanaged and was horrible with the media, the coaching staff, and the team! He under-recruited athletes even with the team having limited scholarships the last two seasons – he didn’t use up the already limited allotment! The last year he only signed 12 players! He was a sanction on to himself. Star players in Woods and Lee couldn’t stand him. When he was fired there wasn’t a tear shed on that team. They immediately started winning again. He held on to a playcard the entire game like a Denny’s menu in the hands of a schizophrenic homeless man. He was a terrible game coach, and NEVER won a game from behind after the first half. If USC wasn’t leading by half-time – GAME OVER.

    He actually hired two offensive line coaches (unheard of) and fired the only defensive backs coach. So the defensive secondary played without a position coach the entire 2012-2013 season!! And people wonder why the team lost to Washington St. and Arizona St! What a freaking idiot that guy was.

    Good riddance!!

  4. dariggy
    dariggy says:

    He deserves no respect. He took a proud program, who stood tall through some really crappy times, and turned it into a mockery. I could care less about the record, the closed practices, fights with reporters, recruiting games and the overall lack of respect for our hallowed program makes me wish he were at Alabama. Oh wait….

  5. Aaron
    Aaron says:

    Let’s not get all romantic about Kiffen. He was a hell of a recruiter, but a horrible game manager and played not to lose. Also the theatrics will not be missed.

  6. Win4Ever
    Win4Ever says:

    I respect the message of this article. A sanction-ridden USC football program wasn’t exactly a dream job for any coach. Kiff stuck with us, and despite the odds, we never endured a .500 or sub-.500 season. I think the sting of the sanctions was made less severe by Kiffin’s off-field expertise: recruiting. No matter what, depth and health were going to be an issue for USC during this period. He made this problem manageable with big time recruits like Leonard Williams, Nelson Agholor, Marqise Lee, Su’a Cravens, and others.

    • Win4Ever
      Win4Ever says:

      Haha ouch. I respect this article and fact that Kiffin took on a program that not many wished to. I’ll forever remember the 2011 season, specifically the 50-0 romping of UCLA and the win in Eugene. Kiff just put too much on his shoulders and he and USC paid dearly for it. He’s a great offensive mind, but not a great leader of men at this point. I think his job at Alabama will bring him back. I wish him the best.

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