SEC Talk

Sometimes it’s tough to find a college sports subject to write about, especially during the summer months. But Tennessee’s Lane Kiffin is keeping journalists and bloggers alike busy as bees, wondering where and when his next NCAA infraction will occur.

Sunday ESPN’s Outside the Lines featured a segment on Kiffin. In it, he is seen meeting with a recruit and his family… a violation according to the NCAA rule book:

A member institution shall not permit a media entity to be present during any recruiting contact made by an institution’s coaching staff member.

NCAA recruiting rule 13.10.1

Oops.

But the reaction of the coach is telling. Just another minor misstep. Can’t keep all of the rules, this stuff happens all the time. And besides, Kiffin repeatedly claims, he is doing all of this just to fire up the Vols fans, it’s all by design.

Athletic Director Mike Hamilton sounds like it is all just another day at UT, saying that self-reporting these things lets the NCAA know that the member institution is on top of things.

But what about this statement from the NCAA rulebook?:

By definition, a secondary violation is one that is isolated or inadvertent in nature, provides or is intended to provide only a minimal recruiting, competitive or other advantage and does not include any significant recruiting inducement or extra benefit.

Hmmm…. Isolated? For the record, this will be Kiffin’s sixth secondary violation in his seven months on the job. That’s not so isolated if you ask me.

I don’t know if Lane Kiffin is brash, arrogant, or just ignorant. I doubt it is the latter. He had a successful run at Southern Cal as offensive coordinator, and one of his biggest boosters is USC coach Pete Carroll.

One of two things is going to happen with the Lane Kiffin Experiment. Either he will win big and be gone to greener pastures, or he will lose and be gone anyway.

It will be interesting to see whether Tennessee survives the Kiffin era intact, or on probation.