By: Chad Wilson – Gridironstuds.com
When he took the job at Tennessee, Lane Kiffin promised a couple of things. One of which was that he would put the Tennessee Volunteers football program back into the consciousness of the college football landscape and have the Volunteer name on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Dude has delivered on that promise!
Like double D breasts, Kiffin and Tennessee have been hard to ignore. Through an array of brash statements and minor recruiting violations, Kiffin has done his best Dennis Rodman/Madonna impression and has kept the Vols in the news. He has, on some scale, made Tennessee relevant again. History has shown that the end of such plans can be tragic when they are hatched in the palace of the NCAA but if parlayed correctly it could be a net positive for Tennessee.
I am not advocating for or condoning the willful breaking of recruiting rules but I will venture to say that Kiffin is not alone in circumventing the myriad of rules pertaining to college football recruitment. Yes, I know the everyone’s doing it statement did not work for people like sprinter Ben Johnson or golfer (cough!) Tiger Woods but for Kiffin it’s the only way to compete in the highly competitive World of college football recruiting. You have to figure at some point, the NCAA will get fed up and decide that they don’t want other coaches to see this plan as being an effective one. Some kind of hammer will drop but Kiffin has skillfully averted the major infractions and has behaved like a mosquito picking and running at the minor rules.
Take his most recent alleged in fraction. Reports are that Kiffin made a recruiting trip to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to visit previous national #1 ranked high school St. Thomas Aquinas. Accompanying Kiffin on this visit was Steve Rubio. Rubio just happens to be a former Vols assistant coach and St. Thomas Aquinas grad. Coincidentally, Rubio is a “personal assistant” on “some” off campus recruiting trips. I love how these things just happen to happen. Anyway, Rubio may have, somehow, gotten out of Kiffin’s watchful eye and might have “somehow” talked to a few players about how great Tennessee was. Who knew he would do something like that? Nevertheless, the NCAA has deemed this a violation and they are investigating. The problem for Kiffin soon will be that he will tie up so many NCAA investigators with his infractions that they will lose manpower to investigate all the other programs running around taking a dump on the rules and wiping their rear ends with NCAA letterheaded paper.
This infraction comes less than one month after it had been learned that a pair of Tennessee Volunteer Bunnies, er I mean hostesses, took a random trip out to Byrnes, South Carolina to visit Byrnes high school players Corey Miller and Brandon Willis. Both players are committed to Tennessee. Byrnes is 200 miles from Knoxville and by all accounts is not a happening town so let’s rule out coincidence here. The ladies in question, pictured with the recruits in this article, stated that they promised both players that they would come see a game during the season and gosh darnit, they delivered on that promise.
Who knew that this was a rule infraction either? If you are on the inside of college football recruiting like I am, you are aware that there’s much more going on than silliness like this. You also know that if you are not an elite program then, sorry to say, you almost have to run afoul of the recruiting rules to actually have a chance. It’s a sad commentary on the state of affairs in college football recruiting but it’s the reality right now. Kiffin is not taking a knife with him to this battle. He has opted for using a gun. Now, this gun may be unregistered but he’s not trying to go out on Saturdays in the Fall and get shot. With all that said, I see the NCAA sharp shooters getting into position high atop the stadium waiting for an opportunity for a head shot. Kiffin needs to get a little better at his craft and not rub the NCAA noses in his recruiting violations. Pretty soon they will grow tired of the “I didn’t know that was wrong” act.
Chad Wilson is a college football recruiting expert and creator of the GridironStudsApp which allows high school football players to gain exposure to college football coaches and fans. Wilson is a former college football player for the University of Miami (92-94) and Long Beach St. (’90-’91) and played briefly for the Seattle Seahawks (’95). He is also a former youth and high school football coach for over 15 years most recently for 5-A State of Florida Champs American Heritage. He runs All Eyes DB Camp a defensive back training company located in South Florida IG: @alleyesdbcamp. Wilson’s oldest son Quincy plays in the NFL for the New York Giants and his younger son plays cornerback for the Arizona Cardinals.
