Lane Kiffin

I'm as much a Tennessee football fan as anyone from East Tennessee, that is to say, I unabashedly (and perhaps undeservedly) live and die each Saturday they play. So it goes without saying that the turbulent months that have led up to this Saturday have been, well, turbulent. I'm really on the fence about Lane Kiffin. As much as I want to believe that his comments about Urban Meyer where part of a "plan", I just can't. I have something called a bullshit detector. And that whole scenario just smells like bullshit. I could be wrong, and I hope I am. That's not to say I don't buy the argument that he needed to draw attention to the program, I get that. But calling someone a cheater, when they aren't one...well, in East Tennessee they call those "fightin words".

No one wants to see the program get back to prominence as much as I do. But sometimes in life you don't get something because you just didn't deserve it in the first place. I have deep reservations about the some of the approach Lane Kiffin has taken to resurrecting the UT football program. Maybe he's just a whole lot smarter than I am. Maybe the Jedi-Mind-Trick he's performing really will work out for the best. Only time will the rest of that story.

Perhaps this is where not having invested one iota of anything to the advancement of the program becomes incredibly convenient. Because although I think integrity is something not to be sacrificed for winning, I don't really win or lose anything. So, in the end it doesn't really matter what I think or say about Lane Kiffin or UT football or, well, anything else I have no investment in whatsoever. I'm rambling, but I have a point...I just have no idea what it is. I guess it's this:

As much as I question Lane Kiffin's tatics and/or his personality in general, it's not my livelihood on the line. When your paycheck depends on it, no matter how you attain it, winning really is everything.