Alabama Football: Better Off Without Lane Kiffin?
By David Wasson
Even with his football pedigree and awesome Twitter trolling, is it past time for the Lane Train to leave the Alabama Football station?
The consensus across this great land of ours, a seeming undeniable truth, is this: Alabama Football is simply too big to fail.
Commandment No. 1 etched into the stone of Nick Saban’s facade, reads: Coordinators Shall Neither Speak Nor Have Public Persona Greater Than Saban.
For the first to succeed, the second must be maintained at all costs. So we can’t help but to connect the dots to this truth …
Lane Kiffin must go.
The moments following last year’s national championship was the perfect time for Kiffin’s Krimson Korner to find a new cable-access home.
Yes, we know. Kiffin’s offense was so awesome last year that not even Jake Coker could keep the Crimson Tide from winning a national championship. And Kiffin’s offense has thus far allowed true freshman Jalen Hurts to thrive while he finds his stride.
But we can’t help but to think Kiffin has gotten just a wee bit too big for his britches and long-sleeved T-shirts. The son of one of the best defensive coordinators in NFL history has become too big a liability to be an asset.
Which means it’s time to expel Joey Freshwater from his post-grad classes.
Take this Saturday, for example. Although it won’t be Kiffin’s first foray back to Neyland Stadium since he cut and ran back to Southern Cal, you better believe that will be a storyline – one that Saban detests to his very core.
Not to mention his Twitter account – sprinkled with admittedly awesome slap shots at Southern Cal and Tennessee – is a time bomb in itself. And let’s not even wade into the morass that are whispers about recently divorced Kiffin on the prowl in between scheming up hitch-and-gos.
The moments following last year’s national championship was the perfect time for Kiffin’s Krimson Korner to find a new cable-access home. For a coach who has made a career out of failing uphill, the national title proved the perfect opportunity to actually move up the coaching ladder on his own merit.
See Smart, Kirby.
Instead, Saban doubled down on Kiffin – pushing through a contract extension that made Jose Aquafresco’s take-home pay both the most among Tide assistants and an attractive target for the lawyers of sorority girls on campus.
Keeping Kiffin on the sideline might look on the surface like a smart play, giving Saban someone else’s ass to chew on camera at while new defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt adjusts to the non-stop griping in the privacy of his headphones.
Next: The Last Time UT Beat Bama?
But mark my words: Kiffin has a far higher likelihood of being the fall guy should Alabama Football slip en route to back-to-back titles than he does being the reason why the Tide wins again.
And that’s why it just might be past time for the Lane Train to pull out of Tuscaloosa.