ShareThisAs Lane Kiffin left town for the Oakland Raiders three years ago, the last thing I remember hearing from my loose consortium of friends who love USC football, was: good riddance.
I can't wait to hear what they think now as Young Kiffin returns a conquering hero, ready to run the whole show.
After Kiffin assumed the role of offensive coordinator in 2005 under Pete Carroll, he was roundly vilified, as if it were his fault that the Trojans failed to repeat as two-time national (Associated Press) champs because they only went 12-1 and 11-2 in his two seasons calling plays.
Bad boy, Lane, bad boy!
Well, it's been a tough crowd at USC for a while now, but it didn't get much better for him post-USC.
The strange thing was that the Oakland Raiders -- well, Al Davis -- found him fascinatingly cocky enough to take over (as a 31-year-old pup) that increasingly dysfunctional NFL franchise in 2007.
If Davis thought he had a young mind he could mold in his eccentric image, he had another thing coming. Kiffin had already been shaped by Carroll, and did things his own way. In Oakland, there's only room for one loose cannon, and that's Davis. Kiffin was fired shortly after Raiders Year No. 2 got under way, with Davis conducting a laborious and memorable press conference outlining Kiffin's alleged insubordination.
Weird Al was so over-the-top that Kiffin came off as sympathetic without even having to rebut. And since getting fired by Davis is as much a badge of honor as a blemish, Kiffin had little trouble finding more work.
Back to the schoolyard, he took over the Tennessee program a year ago, but found more trouble with authority figures. Before coaching his first game, he insulted Florida's Urban Meyer, questioned the integrity Georgia and Alabama, and impugned the reputation of the South Carolina Gamecocks, getting a reprimand from the Southeastern Conference, while earning NCAA wrist slaps for minor recruiting violations.
Then he lost to UCLA in his second game.
If all of this doesn't sound like what the Trojans were looking for in a successor to smooth operator Carroll, USC athletic director Mike Garrett begs to differ.
In announcing his rapid-fire hire Tuesday night, Garrett said he knew Kiffin well, having been able to observe him in his five seasons under Carroll.
Garrett called him a "bright, creative young coach who I thought would make a great head coach here if the opportunity ever arose."
OK, but let's be honest, we're all just guessing at this point, from Garrett to my opinionated friends.
Kiffin was Garrett's third choice, at best, after the AD whiffed on Oregon State's Mike Riley and NFL coach Jack Del Rio.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. Kiffin is already ahead of Carroll, who never even made it to Garrett's depth chart and had to make a big pitch for the job.
But, personally, I think the hire smacks of hurried desperation, as if Garrett was racing against one of those sand-filled hourglasses. To me, USC had resumed its place among college football's elite and could have found a suitable, big-as-Hollywood football name to sustain the momentum Carroll generated.
Then again, I repeat, what do any of us know? The seasoned people that Kiffin reportedly is bringing with him -- his father and Carroll mentor Monte Kiffin, former USC assistant Ed Orgeron, and even possibly his former USC associate Norm Chow -- suggests that the kid coach knows he needs big-time help.
I'm just hoping, from a selfish standpoint, that Kiffin has retained his jagged edges for entertainment purposes.
Everyone else can (and no doubt will) worry about the winning.
(Contact Gregg Patton at gpatton(at)PE.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif.
