ShareThisPASADENA, Calif. - We think we know what to expect with Lane Kiffin. That if you get near enough to USC's new football coach, you can hear the ticking.
His reputation is, wherever he goes, bombs go off. He left his employer in Oakland and fans in Tennessee spitting mad.
His triumphant return home to Troy and his dream job last winter was pock-marked with ethical questions about his staff's contact with Tennessee recruits.
Shortly after arriving, he said his aggressively irritating approach his one year in Tennessee was about attracting attention, something he wouldn't have to do at already-elite USC. Then he offered a 13-year-old quarterback a scholarship, precisely the kind of dubious and overtly splashy move that the Trojans don't have to do.
Meanwhile, waiting for the NCAA to sanction his program for violations during Pete Carroll's tenure, his recruits were assured that the punishment wouldn't be serious. Two years of bowl bans and 30 pulled scholarships (over three years) later, Kiffin can only say, "No one around the program thought they would be that severe."
As for the disconnect between his spin and NCAA reality, he believes it wasn't that big of a deal, since only a handful of players, including two recruits, have opted to leave in the wake of the penalties.
And just for good measure last week, his awkward hiring of Tennessee Titans assistant Kennedy Pola caused Titans coach Jeff Fisher, himself a USC alum, to say Kiffin "lacked professionalism."
Oh, and the lawsuit is pending.
One of these days, of course, things are going to turn more positive for the Trojans -- probably around the time they crush Hawaii in their first game of the year on Sept. 2. But you have to wonder if Kiffin can ever completely shut off the flow of crud that follows him around and sticks to his shoes.
When I referred to the "string of negative news" since he arrived, he calmly disputed the premise.
"I've been here six months," he said in a friendly, almost deferential voice that seems antithetical to his havoc-wreaking image. "I think you'd struggle to pull up anything controversial that I've said."
We'll give him that one. But, of course, it's not the stuff he's said, it's the stuff that's happened.
Thursday at Pac-10 Media Day at the Rose Bowl, Kiffin answered a ton of questions about the sanctions, USC's 2009 stumble and especially his own image, but he was neither defensive nor testy.
"Bad guy?" he said, answering one question with a smile. "I don't think I've heard that one."
Part of the problem may be the disingenuous way he explains away bad news. As if it doesn't really exist. Or there are misunderstandings. Or it's just football fans being passionate.
He appears to be a likeable guy. His quarterback, Matt Barkley, said he's "more subdued" and not as animated as their former boss, Carroll, but "he will get in your grill" if things aren't done right.
"He's not what people make him out to be -- like he's a betrayer," said Barkley, standing up for his new coach.
There are a lot of people standing up for Kiffin right now. The players who stayed. His staff. USC alumni, who want him to succeed. His new athletic director, Pat Haden.
The most important thing, of course, to all of them, is that he win football games, and at least resemble, if he can't duplicate, the Carroll Era successes.
But Kiffin has his own challenge in front of him: a need to eliminate the controversies and the personal missteps, or it could be a short stay for him at USC, because some people think they know who he is (tick, tick, tick) and are expecting the worst.
"I've been controversial in the past," he conceded at one point. "So you live with your history."
If he can just stop repeating it.
E-mail Gregg Patton at gpatton(at)PE.com
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif.Column
