Kiffin’s Confidence Can Never Be Questioned

It probably happens to most of you every day. At work, you answer to a superior that is clearly lacking the common sense, social skills or overall ability to complete the simplest task, yet this individual is in responsible for reporting directly back to another superior who is equally inept until it reaches an owner/CEO/manager/etc. that is extremely insecure and promotes employees who are no threat to them on a professional level.

All too often a man will rise to prominence in their given field of expertise with the opportunity to appoint leaders who are responsible for the supervision of specific aspects of big business, school system, municipalities, etc. and uses it as a way to become the puppet master.

This man now has an array of options from which to choose from when assigning these duties to these candidates. He can either hire proven experts in their given field to oversee their department, someone who is proven and has succeeded throughout their career, or they could go the opposite, insecure route by hiring someone that is completely inept but will play the role of puppet during their entire tenure with the company or franchise.

Lane Kiffin could have easily gone this route when putting together his new staff at the University of Southern California or during his prior job with Tennessee. Instead, Kiffin showed the wisdom of a confident veteran by assembling a coaching ‘Bream Team’. He hired the best coaches available for the job and surrounded himself with talent, not only on the field but in film rooms and coaching banquets.

While at Tennessee Kiffin didn’t negotiate for the maximum salary that he could have gotten but squeezed out the most money possible to be divided amongst the assistants on his staff. Not only did that entice some of the nation’s best position coaches to join his team but it also made them the biggest oxy-moron in college sports; High-priced Volunteers.

As a young coach, nobody would have been surprised if Kiffin surrounded himself with vibrant, green assistants that made up for what they lacked in experience with hard work and dedication. Considering what Kiffin went through in Oakland - where he was run out of town by an ornery old owner who made it no secret that he was the judge, jury and executioner of the Raiders organization and exercised it more often than Jack Lalanne - he almost earned the right put himself in a position of maximum authority over his assistants during his next coaching stops. But Kiffin took more away from Oakland than the average fan may realize. He saw the inner workings of a terrible organization and vowed never to let his name be associated with one ever again.

Along with his father, defensive coordinator/guru Monty Kiffin, Lane also brings Ed Orgeron along for the ride to USC. Orgeron is known as the best recruiter in the country and also has head coaching experience, with a short lived tenure at Mississippi. He made an attempt to hire offensive coordinator Norm Chow but Chow decided to stay put at UCLA. Kifffin is not afraid to go after the best of the best, knowing full well that great assistants have as much to do with a head coach’s success as great players do.

Kiffin’s ethics may have also come into question during his most recent hiring process as well, with video of him promising Tennessee fanatics that they ‘will be singing Rocky Top all night long after beating Florida,’ being the main source of ammunition against the former Volunteer head coach. While Kiffin was ecstatic about receiving the coaching job at Tennessee, even at the time of those statements, there was no doubt that if the USC coaching job ever became available, Kiffin would be on the next plane to LAX.

It was almost a fitting end to his 14-month tenure as head coach considering the amount of controversy he caused shortly after he arrived in Knoxville. Now, he leaves a group of venomous detractors in Tennessee who know - tenfold - how the rest of the SEC must have felt after getting burnt by Kiffin’s words and actions.

Still, this is an extremely smart young man we are talking about, and a football coach who has been beaten down by the lowest of bosses only to survive and be hailed as the next great coach at the best football program on the west coast. You don’t have to look any further than his coaching staff to realize that Kiffin is not only confident in his own skin but knows that he only becomes a better coach when he surrounds himself with premier talent on the sidelines as well.

For as much hubris as Kiffin may exude, a brilliant football minds lays underneath that exterior. That mind will become more of a weapon as he takes in everything his assistants have to offer.