Divided Trogans: Hello Kiffin Already "Losing Favor At USC"

Larry Brown Sports is a sports blog with some pretty good sources around Los Angeles. Those who have been following the drama about Seantrel Henderson PWNing Hello Kiffin will recall that it was LBS that had a head start on the scoop about Trogan coaches getting desperate with Seantrel. We were certainly taking note and it turned out that LBS nailed that story all along.

So with that in mind it is very interesting to read about Brown's post from yesterday noting how Hello Kiffin is already "losing favor at USC":

Kiffin assured fans, media, and recruits that the program would not be hurt by the NCAA’s investigation regarding the alleged violations.  Lane may have been looking out for his program’s best interest at the time but his attitude prior to the sanctions appear to have been disingenuous.  Seantrel Henderson, a mammoth offensive lineman from Minnesota, wanted out of his letter of intent because he felt lied to by the USC coaching staff regarding the NCAA investigation and sanctions, and he was begrudgingly released.  He has since announced he will go to Miami.

In addition to the Henderson saga, USC found itself in the position of accusing five schools of violations.  Freshman running back Dillon Baxter told the school’s compliance director that Florida, Washington, Oregon, Fresno State and Alabama all contacted him illegally in the wake of the school’s sanctions being imposed.  Since then, athletic director Mike Garrett sent letters to the aforementioned schools to apologize for the false accusations.  The incident had Garrett and the USC brass upset over the embarrassment it caused the program, especially because Lane is the one who pushed for the accusations to be publicized.

What is also interesting is Brown's note of Kiffin shamelessly (but not surprisingly) prostituting himself for Shirley:

People within the program are beginning to see how much different Kiffin is from his predecessor, Pete Carroll.  While each coach has loads of confidence, Carroll is much more personable than Lane.  There has been a rash of bad news for the USC program over the past several months and Kiffin knows the only way to gain the confidence of the fans is by winning.  He’s feeling the pressure so much that he wanted to recruit linebacker Joshua Shirley, who was recently released from his letter of intent by UCLA because of a June arrest for stealing a bag on campus.  Shirley had picked UCLA over USC on signing day, but Kiffin was shot down by the school in his efforts to re-recruit Shirley because they did not want to suffer the public relations hit of recruiting a player kicked off UCLA’s team for an arrest.

So it looks our note about Troy being divided is not early at all. The internal back biting and civil war has already started.

Fight on Kiffin (someone here ought to snag that URL and start blogging if poor Kiffin feels more pressure in the coming months). We need to start looking out for him.

GO BRUINS.