It's hard to believe now, but there were those -- I was among them, sorry to say -- who believed Southern Cal would be the nation's best team in 2012. The Trojans were ranked No. 1, ahead of even reigning champion Alabama, in preseason. Then they actually started to play, and we all were reminded of something:

Coaching matters.

Lane Kiffin proved last season he couldn't coach a lick. He took great talent -- he can recruit, which is why he kept getting hired -- and barely broke .500. He lost to Georgia Tech, which was under .500 at the time and which wasn't a team of vast resources, in the Sun Bowl, and that should have been that. But Pat Haden, the USC athletic director, wanted to give the coach he inherited one last chance.

He gave him five games. The Trojans announced early this morning on their website -- gripping headline: "USC head football coach Lane Kiffin terminated" -- that one of the nation's proudest programs has severed ties with the nation's most overmatched coach. The final straw was USC's 62-41 loss at Arizona State on Saturday night, and for those of us in the Eastern time zone: Yes, that score is correct. Southern Cal yielded 62 points in Tempe. Guess Kiffin's famous recruiting didn't net any defenders.

Counting two seasons with the Raiders, Lane Kiffin's career record as head coach is 40-35, and if you throw out one 10-2 season at Southern Cal he's under .500. Not to belabor a point, but he's the worst in the business.

He's also, as we know from his brief time in Knoxville, a jerk. His programs cannot go with a week without some hint of controversy. Last year it was revealed that USC's  ball boys were deflating game balls to give their team a competitive advantage. In El Paso the Trojans showed up late for a Sun Bowl dinner, frosting bowl officials and Georgia Tech and, not incidentally, Paul Johnson. It was later reported that the Trojans had gotten into a fight in their locker room after the game.

This season, which is technically a month old, featured more of the same. After a 10-7 loss to Washington State -- yes, USC was so bad it could lose a game in which it yielded 10 points and another in which it scored 41 -- All-American receiver Marqise Lee said the Trojans had held a players-only meeting; Kiffin said the meeting never happened. That tempest, which hinged on the definition of "meeting" as opposed to "gathering," raged for two days. Life with Kiffin.

Now he's gone, and I believe I speak for everyone when I say: Good riddance. If nothing else, it removes the issue that had muddied the USC-UCLA game: When it's Lane Kiffin against Jim Mora, who's to root for?