20 thoughts on “Kiffin’s No. 1

  1. Kiffin is still one more season away from losing his job, if he doesn’t get this sinking ship fixed

    • When a person conveys no emotion they cannot induce others to respond with emotion. That is why Kiffins teams will always be mediocre. Emotion wins games along with defense.

          • Get tired of hearing bullshit from people who probably have never coached anything. If you and others like you, aka Wolf, are so smart, why don’t you apply for the job?

      • show up to the camp in the spring…Kiff has emotion, it doesn’t translate to news conferences…he is comfortable with kids, not with the media…weird…but true.

  2. Note to Pat Haden:  Winning coaches come in and improve programs from the beginning and progress forward each year.  Within 3 years, you know what you have.  Mediocre performing teams under the same coach do not suddenly surge in year 4 or 5.  Once a loser always a loser.  Look at Norv Turner for example – over and over teams give him a chance as head coach – but it is the same losing approach each time.  But take someone like Belichick, Harbaugh or Chip Kelly – improvement from the beginning and progressively better performance each year thereafter until the program is at the top.  What I can’t understand is why smart people in these organizations (e.g., Pat Haden) don’t recognize this obvious pattern.  Once a winner, pretty much always a winner.  And by the way, anyone who has ever played football, even just at the high school level, can tell you that playing good fundamental football (e.g., WRAPPING THE RUNNER WHEN YOU TACKLE OTHERWISE THEY’LL BREAK THE TACKLE 50% OF THE TIME!!!!!), and having a strong line (offensive and defensive), and inspiring the best from your players, is more important than recruiting great skills players, although you need them too.  Without the fundamentals and the big uglies, you can’t dominate.  Lane’s problems are he’s not bringing in the best linemen, the staff apparently doesn’t emphasize the fundamentals enough (as evidenced by the fact that my 80 year old grandma giving me a hug during the holidays wraps better and has better tacking form), and he doesn’t seem to be able to inspire the players to give their best and rise up above it all.  Winning is about playing fundamentally good football and inspiring your players to give their best . . . and winning coaches inspire their players to make the coach they respect proud of them and to make themselves better men.  I am not an insider at the USC program, but it certainly appears that Lane Kiffin is not inspiring his players and the players don’t seem  to be in the right frame of mind.  Coaches that suck always seem to lack passion and claim that their players are advanced enough that they don’t need to be inspired or motivated – in the words of Norv Turner while at the Raiders – “if they are not motivated on their own by now, they never will be”.  Really Norv, because the coaches with fire in their bellies seem to do pretty well to me.  Where is USC’s coach with fire in his belly – getting in players’ faces, celebrating with them when they succeed, etc.  It certainly isn’t Kiffin. As a USC alum and fan, it is torture to know that we are stuck in the middle for the next year because Pat Haden refuses to pull the trigger, and that if we could just find the right dynamic coach, we could get right back on top.  If coaches of far lesser programs can do it with the shortage of talent they have, then we can certainly get back on top despite sanctions – it is no excuse to keep a coach who is not a winner.  And one more time, if the SC defense doesn’t freaking at least WRAP the runners next year, I’m going to pull my hair out!  If you can’t learn the technique of popping the ball out and still wrapping, then don’t try to pop the ball out and just freaking tackle the guy!!!!
     

    • The Norv Turner comparisons are spot on. I’ve suffered watching underachieving Charger teams as well and have hope now that Norv is finally gone. Football is HARD and head coaches need to be motivators and task masters, Lane and Norv are neither.

  3. recruits are dropping out like lausd high school students…haden needs to do something fast.

      • You don’t think so? As much as LaRue’s de-commit doesn’t hurt nearly as much as Vanderdoes de-commit. I would figure SC would like to be in a position to pull a scholarship then have a kid say I dont want to come to SC. Like even if you don’t like the girl you are dating, you want to be the dumper not the one being dumped.

  4. What criteria gets you to number one? Wins and losses, losing recruits, alums burning the coach in effigy, actual inside the ADs office info!

    • Awesome! We need some good news. Sounds like he’s an amazing talent and a high character kid too.

  5. If Pat Haden isn’t looking at this evening’s Cotton Bowl and seeing what a truly good coach is – then he needs to – TX A&M’s Kevin Sumlin is the real deal – stomping OK and Stoops just like PC did back in 2004.

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