LOS ANGELES - It’s a results business. Lane Kiffin understands that. For football coaches, during this time of year, holidays aren't always happy. For as passive a fan base Los Angeles fans are labeled to be, they sure have warmed up some seats recently.
Had Ben Howland not had the nation’s top ranked recruiting class coming in, he very well could’ve been shown the door at the end of last season. His seat has cooled off some, but with the cards he’s been dealt, UCLA fans are expecting him to win, and win big.
Former Lakers head coach Mike Brown was only able to survive a lockout-shortened season and five additional regular season games before Lakers fans became beyond disgruntled. Brown’s firing and the subsequent hiring of Mike D’Antoni took some of the heat off of Kiffin, momentarily.
But after Saturday’s 38-28 loss at the hands of UCLA, it’s his turn again to sit in the proverbial hot seat.
When Kiffin stepped to the podium at the Rose Bowl following the loss to UCLA, it didn’t take long for him to be asked if he needed to beat Notre Dame to keep his job.
“No I don’t,” Kiffin replied. “I don’t feel that way at all and that comes from the top.”
Have you been assured?
“Yes,” he said.
His boss, USC athletic director Pat Haden, later told the Los Angeles Times that Kiffin is “my head coach, 150%, now and hopefully for a long time." That goes beyond the vote of confidence and certainly seems to have a lot more legs than the “I have no problems with Mike Brown” edict Jim Buss issued just hours before he canned him.
Kiffin considered the questions about his job security "fair to ask." He wasn't surprised by the questions at all, which is not to say deep down inside he secretly questioned his own job security.
“I think, as you saw my reaction, it wasn’t something on my mind because I know the support we have here from our president and our athletic director so that thought had never gone through my mind,” Kiffin said.
Kiffin always talks about how the head coach and quarterback get too much credit during the good times and too much blame when things aren’t so good.
At this point, he’s certainly the fall guy and come Saturday, if the Trojans drop their fourth game in a five-game span, he won’t even be able to look to Matt Barkley to share some of the blame with.
USC is going up against the No. 1 team in the nation, Notre Dame, at the Coliseum on Saturday with a quarterback making his first career start. Not many outside of the brand new McKay Center are giving the Trojans much of a chance to do anything but drop their fourth in five games and their fifth of the season before heading to El Paso for the Sun Bowl.
El Paso’s a long way from Los Angeles and will seem even longer when you consider this team was supposed to spend the turn of the year in Miami.
Instead, they’re the first preseason No. 1 to lose four games since Auburn in 1984. The unranked Trojans are in danger of becoming the first preseason No. 1 to finish the season unranked since Ole Miss in 1964.
The Lakers have the most talented starting five in the NBA. Since Brown’s been let go, it’s become more and more clear his No. 1 crime was over-coaching, instead of letting his players play.
Perhaps Kiffin has over thought things. Running an offense that features arguably the most talented lineup in the country - at least at the skill positions - at times, the USC offense has looked unstoppable. Other times, it looked like a one-dimensional operation that finds moving the ball to be taxing.
Maybe Kiffin, lauded as a play-caller, tried one too many times this season to outsmart the opposition and outsmarted himself.
Maybe, just maybe, despite saying the season wasn’t going to be about statistics, he just couldn’t resist the temptation of getting his players to Walt Disney World on Dec. 6 for the college football awards. Marqise Lee will be there as a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award, it was announced on Monday.
Whatever the case may be, the result is one of the largest screw-ups college football has seen.
Kiffin has to wear that and he has.
“We’re too talented to have this many losses and that falls on me,” he said.
