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Talking Points: Lane Kiffin hearts Pahokee, Pahokee hearts Lane

By Joel Hollingsworth

Tennessee football

  • So much for Pahokee blowback. Tennessee has 58 players from Florida at its camp this week, including 13 from Pahokee High School. Among all of the noise in the Great Lane Kiffin Debate, my answer to someone's question about the possible effect of Kiffin's Pahokee comment painted a picture of the prim and proper high school girlfriend looking out her bedroom window as her dangerous boyfriend shouts sweet somethings at the house despite the overprotective father telling him to get off his property with a loaded shotgun. But Daaaaadd. He looooves me! Can't you see that?

    Also at the camp today is Jesse Scroggins and several other VHTs, including Jeff Luc, the nation's best prospect at linebacker.
  • Get this guy. Got. Wes Rucker has a nice feature on UT linebackers coach Lance Thompson, which includes the following quotes from the first and third heads of the Chimera:
"When we first started getting out there and recruiting, we just kept hearing Lance Thompson's name," Kiffin said. "It seemed like every coach and every player and every family knew him and liked him ... and eventually, it got to the point where I said, 'OK, I've got to meet this guy.'"

. . . .

"I called Lane immediately and said, 'We've got to get this guy,'" Monte said. "If he recruits like you say he does, and he knows football like he just showed me, we've got to have him."
  • It's all the rage. Ghost of Neyland relives the top 5 Tennessee games for which he's been in attendance.
  • More Tennessee week at TSK. Team Speed Kills predicts 7-5 overall and 3-5 in the SEC for the 2009 Tennessee team with losses to Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss, and one other, possibly South Carolina, which they list as a push.
  • Well that was more difficult than it should have been. With the Mark Smith finally resolved, it appears that Aaron Ausmus will indeed be joining the Tennessee staff as its strength and conditioning coach. Ausmus was on the Southern Cal staff with both Ed Orgeron and Lane Kiffin.
  • Even Brian is talking cheese, calling Swindle's one-way wager exceptionally unwise:

    Three years? I, like the rest of the sports blogosphere without a closet full of dayglo orange, am convinced that Lane Kiffin is going to break John L Smith's records for hilarious failure, but even John L Smith lasted four years at State. Maybe if Kiffin was inheriting an unwrecked car, and maybe if he was at a place that had a quick trigger finger, this would be plausible, but, man… it's really hard to get fired in three years.*

    *(I'd like Notre Dame fans to know that I excised a terribly funny Willingham-at-ND cheapshot here. Let's hold hands and get ice cream.)

  • ESPN's front page right now is featuring former Tennessee defensive coordinator (and current LSU DC) John Chavis. Best of luck to Chief, except when he plays us.

    • Tennessee basketball

    SEC

    Around SB Nation goes up later today, probably lunchtime.

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