A brief thought on our rivals: is Kiffin the Steve Lavin of college football?
by Achilles on Jan 25, 2010 5:51 AM PST
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PrintBumped. GO BRUINS. -N
Someone on a UCLA message board asked this question recently: Would Lane Kiffin have gotten the USC job if he wasn't bringing Ed Orgeron and his father Monte Kiffin with him. The post continued by sort of lamenting the package deal and then sort of disintegrated into nonsense (which is what seems to happen a lot on message boards).
But the original question intrigued me and here is how I would have answered it.
Well, for one thing, the Raiders hired Kiffin without his father or Ed Orgeron.
Partisanship aside, the appeal of Lane Kiffin is not clear to me. I can't even figure out why Pete Carroll hired him -- except that Carrol is indebted to Monte Kiffin. Then the Raiders hired him as head coach. WTF?
Think about all the really qualified coaches out there -- the innovators and the respected former players and everyone else -- who have never gotten a head coaching job but in the space of about three years or so Lane Kiffin gets an NFL head coaching job, a desirable SEC head coaching job and a very desirable Pac 10 head coaching gig.
Does this make sense?
As for it being a package deal, it probably was but so what? Lots of head coaching types bring certain assistants with them -- I don't think package deals in coaching circles are all that uncommon and certainly they aren't untoward. They aren't comparable to recruiting package deals like when someone hires a high school coach to get the star player.
The whole thing makes so little sense to me all the way around. I get that Monte Kiffin is a respected d coordinator and he gets a lot of credit for the Tampa Cover 2 defense that so many teams play (including ours, I think, because Walker is on Pete Carroll's coaching tree who was on Kiffin's coaching tree and Bullough is on Walker's coaching tree). But, I dunno, you still have to be able to teach it to kids, which is different than teaching it to pros. Is it a given that Monte Kiffin will be a great college coach?
Lane Kiffin reminds me a little bit of Steve Lavin, though he's probably a better coach than that all things considered. Lavin's entre into coaching was familial: His father was a legendary high school coach and Steve Lavin cut his teeth at his father's camps. His initial forays into coaching were due to his name, not his acumen. One time, before he was even UCLA's head coach, someone I knew from the Bay Area referred to him as "the chosen one." Basically, people knew he'd go into coaching because he'd been groomed for it. That he turned out to be Fredo and and not Michael or even Sonny was just fate.
Taking the metaphor further, Lane is probably more like Sonny -- with his father as consiglieri and Ed Orgeron as Luca Brasi. But like Lavin, he got into coaching by hanging on to the shirt tails of his more accomplished father.
Speaking of Orgeron ... he went from being a line coach to being a head coach back to being a line coach. Why doesn't anyone want him as a DC himself? Why does he want to be a position coach and not a play caller if not a full on head coach? As far as I can tell, he has one talent: He's a recruiter. If you ever heard him interviewed, he's as inarticulate as they come. Somehow, though, when he starts the sales pitch he turns into the best used car salesman you ever met. If coffee is for closers, Orgeron lives at Starbucks.
My conclusion is that SC's strategy seems to be: Let's just recruit like crazy and just overwhelm teams with our talent. They aren't going to try and out coach anyone. They are going to stay basic. Remember, we played against this group. Was there anything about what Tennessee did that struck you as innovative or complex?
No, they are going to stick to fundamentals and try to overwhelm teams with sheer talent. I'm just not sure if that's a winning strategy or not.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.
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On the Ogre
The answer to “Why doesn’t anyone want him as a DC himself?” is two-part, in my opinion. First, “nobody” wants him (period) because he’s shady (cf. recruiting violations first day on the job). Nobody except $C.
Now $C doesn’t want him as DC because they have Monte Kiffin, but they want his recruiting talent (shady though it may be), so they shoehorned him into an assistant spot.
Would Lane have gotten the job with out the package deal?
I seriously doubt it. First of all, Al Davis is CRAZY. And he probably over looked the fact that it was Norm Chow that created that juggernaut across town. He bought into Cheat Carroll’s hype machine that Kitten was some kind of wunderkind and hired him on that alone.
Since then, He has only really gotten the Tennessee job, and i seriously doubt he would have got that job if not for the ability to bring in Monte and the Ogre. I think despite Monte’s long history as DC it is PR value which makes him attractive to schools like Tennessee and South Central. If you were a defensive all star coming out of high school, why wouldn’t you want to play for a guy who’s been coaching in the NFL longer than you’ve been alive?
The best thing you can do for your children is to love their mother. John Wooden
How I remember it
Is that u$c* fans blamed 13-9 on Kiffykins. Being that only coaches who are very hard-up for a job go to Oakland, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cheety puffed up Kiffykins’ resume to Old Man Davis. Personally, I think Old Man Davis and Kiffykins were a perfect match in my twisted way of thinking, but all good things came to an end.
Now why Tennessee hired him is beyond me. The only logical explaination is Monte, but even then, why take that big of a chance?
by bruinbabe2000 on Jan 22, 2010 2:32 PM PST up reply actions
Kiffin was interviewed by Oakland
to be an assistant to Sarkisian; Al wanted Sarkisian and Kiffin to be there. When Sarkisian thought better of it, Al ended up taking Kiffin on as head coach instead.
A situation not entirely dissimilar to the Jim Zorn situation at the Redskins, where he was hired as an assistant while the head coaching job was vacant, and then promoted to head coach when they couldn’t get anyone else they wanted.
To this very day
I have not seen anything that indicates that Cheatie Peatie was a great x’s and o’s coach. I would love someone to come in here and explain exactly why he was so great other than being a great recruiter and “rah rah” type guy. This includes the trOJay boards, I have yet to see any sort of detailed breakdown of, in the immortal words of Charlie Weis, “a decided schematic advantage” with Old Peat.
With that in mind, maybe, just maybe, he was an average x’s and o’s coach but made up for it in other departments. After all, they did have the best recruiting classes for like 7 years in a row (correct me if I’m wrong).
So Mike Garrett’s all-knowing smug look at the Peatie news conference must have been because he had some sort of plan. I suspect, with Lame’s proven ability to recruit, Garrett thinks he’ll get the same action in the recruiting department as Peatie but with the additional benefit of having Monte and the Ogre. Also, given these facts, I think Lame would have been their first choice but because it runs so afoul of the NCAA and the national backlash that comes with ditching Tennessee after one year, he ended up being (number>5) in the discussion.
Enjoy the sanctions, a$$holes.
I dont think you need or want a great x’s and o’s coach at the college level. I think scheme matters less at the college level since practice and meeting times are so limited – you’ve got your bread and butter and you just have to execute it. Petey’s advantage came in recruiting (which is key in college since you aren’t allowed as much time with the kids) and execution…maybe not so when Stanford came wandering into the coliseum but in the big games you can’t deny that his players played tough and sound football and he was able to haul in talent. Having an “decided schematic advantage” only really helps at the NFL level when you can stay up all night micromanaging matchups to get player A isolated on player B.
by jtthirtyfour on Jan 24, 2010 4:52 PM PST up reply actions
Re Monte Kiffin
I’ve said it before, but I’ll repeat it for those who didn’t notice. Monte Kiffin is not the Leonardo da Vinci of defensive coaches. I believe (no evidence other than the reputations discussed in Tampa) that the Tampa 2 defense was invented by Coach Dungy, not Coach Kiffin. Whatever the case is, it is a fact that Coach Kiffin was only an ordinary coach. When you played the Bucs, you knew you were going to be able to put a few points on the scoreboard. I think Coach Kiffin looked at 20 poins as being a win for his side.
And last year’s numbers tell a story, although I’m not exactly sure what that story is:
Points per game $c was 22nd (19.85), UCLA was 27th (21.23) and Tenn was 38th (22.23). We were 1.38 points per game worse than just$c, and 1.0 points per game better than Monte Kiffin’s Tennessee team.
Total defense – Tenn was 22nd at 318.77, we were 34th at 334.0, and just$c was 40th at 340.46. just$c picked up a defensive guru whose team had numbers that were 22 yards a game better, or basically 5 yards a quarter better.
Bottom line: I don’t think Kiffin the elder is a good enough coach to make it worth while to take the douchebag who sprung from his loins.
Well ...
I don’t enjoy defending Kiffin, but I’m comfortable acknowledging the guy can run a defense.
Numbers don't tell the story
I watched the last two years of his reign in Tampa. Those two years his defense was at most ordinary. Bucs fans knew we weren’t going to give up 40 points, but we knew for a fact that we weren’t going to hold the other team under 20. And when we had a 21-20 lead going into the last two minutes, we knew that the other team would be able to drive the ball at the end and put up the winning field goal. It seemed to happen every week, and sometimes it seemed like it happened two or three times a week.
I am also comfortable acknowledging the guy can run a defense. He showed he can do that in the nfl. But he’s not the defensive guru like the guy at Nebraska who’s name escapes me at the moment.
My point was that Monte Kiffin is not a good enough coach such that you would do anything, including hiring one of the great douchebags of modern times, to get him.
Nebraksa guru
That would be Bo Pelini, whose departure from LSU turned them from a national champion into an also-ran in the SEC.
Is Daddy going to stay with little Lanie until he drops? I can just hear Mama Kiffin saying, “Monte, you know he can’t do it on his own! I’ll take care of the house on Clearwater Beach. You go keep an eye on our baby!”
Kiffin vs. Lavin
As bad a coach as he was, as much as he destroyed the UCLA program, Lavin never cheated and never disrespected other coaches.
I keep looking at Kitten’s blank face and keep wondering why a player would ever want to play for that guy.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
by tasser10 on Jan 23, 2010 9:38 PM PST via mobile reply actions
Girls
Tasser, did you see the SC/UW game? Hello Kiffen had lots of blondes arround him.
Geezer in training.
Kiffin vs Lavin
One is a sack of shit and the other is a pile of it….really I don’t think its worth nitpicking which is the better of the two.
"I don't forget very much" Rick Neuheisel, 11/28/09
by Blue Me on Jan 25, 2010 9:04 AM PST via mobile up reply actions
Well Lavin did cheat
Not necessarily per NCAA rules. He cheated UCLA out of millions of dollars posing as a “head coach.”
True
but Lamey is now doing that to U$C*.
So, the score is Lavin (-1), Lamey (-2).
It just underscores how much more I dislike Kitten. Really, I strongly doubt U$C* could have brought in a coach that I could hate more. It’s unbelievable.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
On the other hand
I may end up LOVING Lame Kitten if he torpedoes the U$C* football program as expected…any Bruin would love him!
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
Apparently
Lamey is getting paid $4 million per year at Southern Cal. Freaking insane. Not sure what those clowns are smoking.
They make a mockery
of their own football tradition.
Only at U$C*.
I want him to fail badly, but more along the lines of CTS so that he stays for a while!
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
Much as I hate Kiffin
There’s no way his actual coaching and program management (unless he gets the entire team indicted for treason or something) can be anywhere near as bad as Lavin’s. For all his despicable traits, chronic incompetence and laziness don’t seem to be a part.
Disagree in a sense
Lavin called the grandfather of a recruit to complain because the lad committed elsewhere (a violation I think) and once he became so incensed at an official’s call he turned to the head of PAC-10 officiating in the stands and made a slashing motion across his throat. I recall some discipline was imposed for that threatening conduct. Now Lavin is no Kiffin-Orge but his ethics still stunk up the place where John Wooden coached.
Sorry to get so irate about Lavin but I can’t restrain myself. I’ll seek counseling for this anger management issue.
by peggysue69 on Jan 25, 2010 1:14 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
Never heard of those incidents
but not surprising.
The differences between those two characters are negligible indeed, it’s what you get when you’re comparing a steaming pile of cow dung to armpit sweat.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just the 800 lbs bruin in the room.
Monte Kiffin
Has a great defensive mind. He plays defense not defenses….meaning that his defenses run and hit. The Tampa 2 thing and the scheme is overblown…probably the most overrated thing since sliced bread. If you watched those Tampa teams back in the early 2000s they only ran 2-deep about a third of the time, they also mixed in a lot of 3-deep shell coverages and robber stuff, some quarters. That being said I was impressed with Tennessee vs. Florida last season although I didn’t get a chance for a close viewing – off the top of my head they ran a lot of invert and quarters to load up on the inside.
Doesn’t really matter who came up with it, but as far as I know Tampa was indeed the first team that really made heavy use of it and had success – but it is only a small part of what they did. For some reason the media latched onto that wrinkle and ran with it. I’ve got some film of Tampa from when Monte was there and I’ll go back and dig it up if anyone wants to see what he really ran.
As far as Lane being a head coach, it is just about who you know. It’s tough enough to be a HC even at the HS level, being a HC at the NCAA level or in the pros is like winning the lottery, and with any job that is tough to get the networking factor becomes very important.
BTW we don’t run a lot of 2-deep ourselves – but then again neither did those Tampa teams. I’ve been trying to get ahold of some tape of Tennessee from last season other than from when we played them in order to get a feel for how Monte’s changed (I would like to get my hands on that UT/UF game for another look). But the fact that coaches are on the same “tree” doesn’t mean they will run the same scheme.
Pass the meat balls Fredo
I like your analysis and the Godfather references Nestor. I always thought the SUCs were some mafiosa type organization. I was in Barnes and Noble he other day and they have a whole rack of books on the legacy of USC. Yeah, what they are marketing is the B.S. that they are invincible because of their legacy: the Heismans their Rose Bowl victories, etc. Will this keep working for them? I don’t think so; especially with Hello Kiffen in charge. Everyone in the PAC 10 wants to see these gumbas slip on their pasta fazole. I can’t wait to see it.
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