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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2009 > February > 10
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Dooley: Kiffin ‘has a lot to learn’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Evil Genius talked big, too. The difference was, Steve Spurrier had already won something before he arrived in the SEC. (Like an ACC championship - at Duke.)
Lane Kiffin’s record as a head coach is 5-15. And yet he has, in two-plus months at Tennessee, managed to come off as the biggest smart aleck ever to hit the conference that eventually humbles everybody.
It will be great fun watching him lose.
In two-plus months Kiffin has taken shots at Nick Saban (who has one national championship to Kiffin’s none), jousted with Spurrier (one national championship) and suggested the only reason Mark Richt (two SEC titles) landed prized recruit Marlon Brown was because of Brown’s grandmother. And then, the morning after Signing Day, Kiffin wrongly accused Urban Meyer (two national championships) of cheating. (Kiffin has since admitted two recruiting violations of his own.) Some Act 1, huh?
“He’s young and aggressive,” said Vince Dooley, who was younger and no less aggressive than the 33-year-old Kiffin when he became Georgia’s coach. And then, after one of those studied Dooley pauses for effect, he said: “And he has a lot to learn.”
It’s one thing to try and win - every coach does that - but quite another to show no respect for your elders (and, simply on the record, your betters). Kiffin’s brashness has played well in Big Orange Country, where the shoved-aside Phillip Fulmer was seen as too dull and deferential, but it will play rather less well on autumn Saturdays. As we know, Tennessee faces Alabama and Florida and South Carolina and Georgia every blessed year.
“As long as you win, people seem to like whatever type of personality you have,” Dooley said.
But Kiffin, it was noted, hasn’t won a game as a collegiate head coach.
Said Dooley, laughing: “That’s what I mean.”
Maybe Meyer felt the same way about the SEC when he plopped down in Gainesville, fresh off an undefeated season at Utah. Maybe he felt his spread offense would wreak immediate havoc upon his new realm. But he lost four games in his first season at Florida and four more in his third, and even in the glow of his two national titles the message seems clear: This league leaves scars on every hot young coach.
Spurrier lost his first game against Tennessee and Johnny Majors 45-3. Saban lost four games his first season at LSU and six his first year at Alabama. Richt was outsmarted at the end of his first SEC game by the rascal Lou Holtz. Les Miles, he of the gratuitous fake kicks, lost his first SEC title game to Georgia and Richt by 20 points.
Back to Spurrier: In the ’90s he came as close as anybody ever will to ruling the SEC in the post-Bear era, but his domination wasn’t transferable. In four seasons at Carolina he has lost five more conference games than he did in 12 years at Florida. He’s the same smart guy, but he’s no longer the scourge of Southern football. The league unsettles the meek and the proud alike.
“I was a young fellow,” said Dooley, who was 31 when he became Georgia’s coach, “and Doug Dickey [then at Tennessee] and I would just sit in the corner close together [at league meetings]. You had Bear Bryant and Johnny Vaught and Shug Jordan - we were intimidated by those guys.”
Understand: Dooley wasn’t so cowed he couldn’t beat those legends. (He would win six SEC titles.) But he knew better than to rile rivals unnecessarily. Kiffin has gone miles out of his way to tick off his. Meyer and Saban mightn’t have known Lane Kiffin from Lois Lane three months ago, but they know him now.
“There’s a learning curve,” said Dooley, laughing again. “Definitely.”
It will be great fun watching Lane Kiffin learn.
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