Lane, we hardly knew ye!
There is a common thought amongst coaches and administrators: If
you’re part way into a season and have resolved to fire the coach at the
end of the year, why wait? If you’re absolutely of the mindset that
nothing that could happen in the remaining games is going to change your
mind, pull the trigger now. Better to get it over and done with. In affect, that’s what USC’s Athletic Director Pat Haden did. He
didn’t wait for the end of the game, either. He’d seen enough inept
offense and bad defense from the Trojans in Tempe, Arizona, to have made
up his mind.
Less than six hours after USC had been steamrolled 62-41 — Arizona
State Head Coach Todd Graham claimed that his Sun Devils had dominated
USC, and he wasn’t far from the mark — Kiffin was out and in firing
their coach, the Trojans administrators appear to have admitted that the
season, for all intents and purposes, is over. At 0-2 in Pac-12 competition, it basically is.
What has happened to USC? Perhaps it’s Kiffin’s own fault that the
bar has been raised so high because he started well under difficult
circumstances, coming in when Pete Carroll left and being slapped with
penalties from the NCAA.
There is always the expectation of winning, but when you start
winning against UCLA 50-0 at home, Notre Dame under lights in South Bend
and Oregon in Eugene, when under the shadow of the NCAA sanctions,
you’re expected to win when the sanctions are lessened.
Kiffin going 10-2 in 2011 was about the worst thing he could have
done. In the last two seasons, USC just hasn’t been able to back it up.
2012 was a disastrous decline for a team ranked No. 1 in America coming
on.
Partly a victim of his own early success, Kiffin hasn’t really helped
himself, either. He’s not been particularly media-friendly or seemingly
able to part with play-calling duties, despite pointed suggestion he
should. He’s presided over a dirge of an offense, whose deficiencies were shown up by, of all teams, Washington State.
On the periphery, there’s been some questionable ethical decisions.
But Athletic Directors can turn a blind eye to most of that ancillary
stuff if the team is winning — look at Ohio State ignoring things under
Jim Tressel. Kiffin’s surly treatment of the media and his closed practices
weren’t a problem when they were beating Notre Dame, Oregon and UCLA.
Now, when they can’t even beat Washington State…these things start
piling up.
Add to that, pressure from boosters and other influential Southern California types, and Haden was basically forced to act.
It’s interesting though, that these backroom warriors like to ignore
the fact that USC is still down many scholarships, and has shown a noted
lack of depth in most games this season. The injury to star WR Marqise Lee won’t help that. To expect to
achieve National Championship-calibre success with barely more than 50
scholarship players is foolish and arrogant.
Really, this is about recruits — and it’s about UCLA. The Bruins,
less than two calendar years after being embarrassed 50-0 by Kiffin’s
Trojans, have had an incredible resurgence.
Jim Mora Jr’s squad beat USC 38-28 last year, shifting the balance of
power in Los Angeles. That win, combined with the decline in USC’s
fortunes, saw the UCLA recruiting the big-time players that USC used to
get. Kiffin and Ed Orgeron (the interim coach — what an assignment to be
handed after the axing of his close friend!) are Master Recruiters.
They’re the type who could sell ice to Eskimos. Indeed, Kiffin’s ability
to bring in A-grade talent is probably all that stood between him being
fired after the Sun Bowl debacle.
Now, with recruits going across town to Westwood because USC can’t
win and can’t fill the Coliseum — it looks empty, like the Rose Bowl did
for so many years of Bruins home games — Haden had to make a move. I don’t think he wanted to. The man isn’t the sort who’d pledge 100
percent support before the season and fire Kiffin a few weeks later. I
wonder if this wasn’t a situation where Haden’s hand was forced, where
he was backed into the corner, pressured from above, probably from the
school’s president. Because this cloak-and-dagger late-night summary
execution stuff just doesn’t fit Haden’s personality.
And so, Haden and the USC powers-that-be have sacrificed the season,
to try and save recruits from turning away from the Kiffin-led Trojans,
and will now spend the remainder of the year looking for a new head
coach to step in and return USC to it’s familiar spot in the upper
echelon of NCAA programs.
It can be done. Indeed, it’s been done before. Consider the state the
program was in before Pete Carroll took over. They were dead men
walking, and Carroll (leaving aside the off-field issues that plagued
the program) turned them into perhaps the best team in the country over
Carroll’s reign at the Coliseum. Certainly, if NFL recruits, Heisman
Trophy winners, All Americans and BCS Bowl victories count for anything.
USC are down, but not out. Fight On!
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