Monday, December 1, 2008

Mixed emotions about Tennessee hiring Lane Kiffin as football head coach

Well, the Lane Kiffin era as University of Tennessee head football coach officially began Monday, and I have to admit that I have mixed emotions about his hiring.

For a program of Tennessee's stature, I was hoping that we would hire a higher profile coach with a track record. I know Kiffin is well-respected for his work as an assistant coach at USC, but I wanted a coach with at least some experience as a college head coach. I know he has head coaching experience with the NFL's Oakland Raiders, but I don't know how much we can learn from that. After all, the Raiders are a mess.

The Southeastern Conference has four head coaches that have won national championships (Steve Spurrier at South Carolina, Urban Meyer at Florida, Nick Saban at Alabama, and Les Miles at LSU). With Kiffin's lack of experience, I kind of feel like Tennessee will be bringing a knife to a gun fight when we play those teams.

Additionally, I have read in multiple media reports that the biggest asset Kiffin may bring to the job is the top flight staff he will likely assemble. While I agree that it is important to have great assistant coaches, it shouldn't be the top attribute a coach has to offer. That sounds like the type of talk a job applicant would provide if he knew he didn't have the qualifications for the job.

On the other hand, I do feel good about this in some ways. Since taking over the job, athletic director Mike Hamilton has shown an uncanny ability to hire the right person (most notably, men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl.)

Also, Tennessee has a long history of hiring coaches that have had little or no head coaching experience. Each of those coaches were considered top flight assistants who were looking for a break. Of course, Phillip Fulmer fit that category. If he hadn't gotten the Tennessee job in 1992, then he certainly would have gotten one some place else. Before that, Bill Battle in 1970 and Doug Dickey in 1964 also fit that category. Dickey's tenure was a tremendous success, while Battle was a classy man who started well but fizzled at the end.

I wish Kiffin well as he recruits and attempts to get the program back on track. However, he has huge shoes to fill.

Time will tell.

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