Lane Kiffin hadn’t coached at Tennessee for two years, but was taking the blame for anything and everything wrong with the Volunteers until a shocking event last November.
What event was that? It was Tennessee’s first loss to Kentucky in 26 years, with Kentucky being led to a 10-7 win by a converted wide receiver who hadn’t played quarterback since high school.
It was after that signature loss that some Tennessee fans finally let Lane Kiffin off the hook, or at least let Derek Dooley join him in the blame game.
“Are you sure I didn’t get blamed for the Kentucky game? I’m sure somebody somewhere blamed me for that,” Kiffin told the AJC with a laugh.
“After we left two years ago, and I don’t remember the timeline, there were some floods in Tennessee. So people around here were joking that was my fault — that there were floods there.
“It is what it is. I still have a number of people I stay in contact with there at Tennessee. I know this: I did everything the right way there, as you can see what came out of the NCAA’s investigation. The goal was to make Tennessee better every day. That’s what we strived to do every day we were there … to build confidence in our players and our fan base, and recruit really good players.”
Flashback to 2009: Kiffin quickly reached celebrity status in his one season at Rocky Top, rocking the SEC establishment with his boldness and confidence. After beating out then-Florida coach Urban Meyer for a recruit, Kiffin famously said, “I love the fact that Urban had to cheat and still didn’t get him.”
Ironically, Kiffin and Meyer have gone from archenemies to fast friends now that both are outside of the SEC empire. Meyer told the CBSSports that Kiffin apologized for his past transgressions, and Meyer (now at Ohio State) responded by saying “I acted like a child, too.”
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