Over the weekend, football teams won and football teams lost, but the biggest trend wasn’t about the teams. The buzz was about The University of Southern California’s head coach Lane Kiffin. It doesn’t shock many that he got axed after having a couple of terrible seasons with USC, but the way he got fired has people talking.
Kiffin didn’t get fired in a comfy office. He didn’t get a call saying it was over. Instead he was met in USC’s private airport terminal to receive the bad news.
Granted, Kiffin should have seen this coming after what happened last season. During the 2012 season, Kiffin’s team was ranked No. 1 in the preseason AP Poll. By the end of the season, USC was out of the top 25 – something unheard of in almost 50 years.
Fast-forward to this season, USC debuted at No. 24 in the preseason AP Poll but dropped out of the poll by the third week of the season.
If you take a look at Kiffin’s career over the past decade, it hasn’t been all sunshine and daisies. When he first started out, he worked for Colorado State before going to work for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He then went to work as an assistant coach for USC.
Kiffin’s time at USC, 2001-2007, helped the Trojans out tremendously. Despite the 2005 setback where USC had to forfeit its season due to the NCAA’s ruling on Reggie Bush, Kiffin’s brightest time was nearly 10 years ago.
After 2007, it all went downhill from there for Kiffin. He went on to coach the Oakland Raiders, and after that flopped in 2008, Kiffin went to Tennessee in December of 2008 to try and get a collegiate career back. Tennessee didn’t want him, though, and in 2010, Kiffin departed for USC.
His single season at Tennessee marked a lot of turmoil in the SEC. After accusing a Florida recruiter of breaking NCAA rules, Kiffin got himself into some more trouble by bashing the University of South Carolina to a potential player. Kiffin then left Tennessee to go back to USC.
Returning to USC as a head coach should have been a shining moment in his career; however, it wasn’t. After the 62-41 loss to Arizona State on Saturday, USC decided to fire Kiffin and take the team in a new direction.
Athletic director Pat Haden called a meeting to decide the fate of Kiffin’s career, and six hours later, Kiffin was fired.
Kiffin’s demise was swift and abrupt; he wasn’t aware of what was happening to him until it was too late. Some say it was a long-time coming. But by the way he has bounced back before, no one should undermine his ability to land a job.
USC is on a bye week, so the team has time to prepare for the rest of the season with a new coach, but it doesn’t look so good for them right now.
