| 19 September 2009
Today we get to see the Tennessee Volunteers travel down to The Swamp to take the on Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators. If anyone is excited for this game you shouldn’t be, it’s going to be a blowout. Florida is the best team in the nation and Tennessee just lost a home game to UCLA. People will still watch this game though. Not because of the battle between the teams or to witness SEC speed. Not because we get to see #1 Florida go up against an SEC opponent or because the savior Tim Tebow is playing. People will be watching this because of the coaches. Lane Kiffin is a mediocre coach who runs his mouth constantly without ever achieving anything. What has he really done? He somehow got Oakland Raiders head coaching job after being a USC coordinator and didn’t get too far there. Now he’s a SEC coach who is continuously causing recruiting violations and spitting out more than he can chew. At least this time his daddy, Monty Kiffin, will be right beside him.
I’m fine with having rivalries and having some unkind words here and there, but when you haven’t done anything before and won’t do anything tonight then why do this? Maybe Lane needs the edge; he can’t get himself or players up for the game so it’s his way of getting it going. Now this week he is backpedalling as much as possible to give respect. He probably knows that the Gators are extremely better than his team and they will use the banter that he gave them before the season started as ammunition to destroy the Volunteers.
College coaches need to do three things: coach, recruit, and give guidance. So far Lane has done well at one, recruiting, okay at one, coaching, and subpar at one, guidance. The problem is that being a college coach is all about guidance. You need to guide your team when you coach, guide the young men when you recruit, and guide the players in life. Hopefully Coach Kiffin has learned some guidance from other people and has stopped the antics that caused turmoil before his college coaching career began. If he does have a new sense of guidance then it will be a positive effect for the university, players, and recruits. He can finally guide them in the right direction and one day maybe Lane Kiffin and the rest of the team will finally be able to sing Rocky Top after a win against Florida.
