Why I Like Lane Kiffin: The Brevity Version

Joel and I certainly weren't lying to anybody when we wrote about the ridiculous amount of media attention bestowed upon our esteemed head coach.

Here is an article that posted after my last FanPost (http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/11789585).  I link this not because it's mindblowing, but because I really like Bruce Pearl's take on Kiffin.

Pearl is the guy who advised Kiffin that it's good to be hated. That means you're doing something right in the SEC.

"My goal was to be the least popular coach in the SEC in a year," Pearl said. "He managed to do it in a week.

"I know one of the biggest problems when I took over was the players didn't believe. What I'm saying is, your coach better believe. He's got something different ... I get him. I get him in the sense that, look at how they're recruiting. You have to do that with a certain confidence and a certain swagger. He's probably said some things that other people were probably afraid to say.

The roughly eight thousand or so anti-Kiffin articles written over the last couple months can be pretty well summed up in a single sentence.  Something to the effect of: "Kiffin should win a little before he starts talking smack." 

Wrong.  

The truth of the matter -- which Pearl gets right at -- is that Kiffin has to talk smack before he wins...because it is that very smack talk that is going to help him win.  Now I'm not saying that this is a maxim that applies to all aspects of life.  I like humility as much as the next guy, and I recognize that superior performance should normally be the horse to self-promotion's cart.  But exceptions exist for a reason.  UT needed an injection of swagger, not humility.  And Kiffin came bearing a syringe full of the former.

That's why I like Lane Kiffin.  At least that's the short answer.

KB