Roy Exum
Just moments before Florida would seal a football 10-9 victory over Tennessee in early October, the student section in Neyland Stadium stooped to a new low when it vociferously chanted, “F*** you, Florida! F*** you, Florida!” It was shocking, a loud and vulgar display of all that sportsmanship isn’t, and served as a great embarrassment to Knoxville and the university.
Jimmy Cheek, the chancellor, immediately received numerous emails from distraught UT fans who were at the game.
He then fired an email to the entire student body, saying such behavior was “totally unacceptable” and wrote, “While the results were not what any of us wanted, it was extremely dismaying to hear our student fans acting in such a disrespectful manner.”
That said, the hunch here is that UT officials ain’t heard nothing yet. Late this Saturday afternoon will come the precise moment that Vol fanatics have been waiting for since January when it was learned Alabama hired Lane Kiffin as its offensive coordinator. Kiffin, the most universally despised figure in the modern era of Big Orange football, will accompany the 4th-ranked Crimson Tide (6-1) to Knoxville this week and, if there was a pot big enough, the Tennessee fans would love to cook “The Kiff” at the 50-yard line shortly before the 6:30 p.m. kickoff
Kiffin, for those with a short memory, was hired as Tennessee’s football coach in late November of 2008 to replace Phillip Fulmer and it was a colossal mistake. Brash and just 33, he got off to a roaring start when, at a February booster meeting, he blatantly accused Urban Meyer of cheating.
"I'm going to turn Florida in right here in front of you," Kiffin told the Knoxville crowd. "As Nu'Keese (Richardson) was here on campus, his phone keeps ringing. And so one of our coaches is sitting in the meeting with him and says, 'Who is that?' And he looks at the phone and says, 'Urban Meyer.' Just so you know, you can't call a recruit on another campus. But I love the fact that Urban had to cheat and still didn't get him.”
He then told South Carolina recruit Alshon Jeffery "he would end up pumping gas for the rest of his life like all the other players from that state who had gone to South Carolina." (Jeffery went to Carolina, was drafted in the second round by Chicago and was in last year’s Pro Bowl.)
Finally the 2009 season rolled around and, with a prized recruiting class beginning to drop like flies, UT managed to go 7-6 after a 24-point loss in the Chik-fil-A Bowl. When Kiffin bolted for Southern Cal in January of 2010, the students rioted on campus, yet the fan base rejoiced. Mike Hamilton, the UT athletic director at the time, was asked by a reporter to summarize Kiffin’s tenure at UT and he did so in one word: “Brief.”
There was also a move to have the new sewage treatment plant in Knoxville named for Kiffin at the time, but with his heralded recruiting class almost non-existent, Kiffin’s turncoat tactics rankled the Vols and are now believed to have significantly delayed Butch Jones’ brick-by-brick building efforts. At least, Lane is being blamed the most for the Vols’ current 3-4 record after the 34-3 loss at Ole Miss Saturday.
Swarthy Alabama, of course, is Tennessee’s most legendary opponent in the SEC West. The SEC East games are much more important by today’s measure, but Alabama coach “Bear” Bryant called the “third Saturday in October” a milestone every year, due in large part because Bryant coach never beat Gen. Neyland.
Nick Saban, college football’s newest mastermind, knew there would be friction this week when he hired Kiffin and looked ahead to the Knoxville visit, but that was long before red-faced UT officials hastily ordered the Pride of the Southland band to strike up “Rocky Top” after the Florida loss in an effort to drown out the vulgar students.
The incident was hardly lost on Gator coach Will Muschamp, who told a network reporter in Knoxville after the chanting, "It’s great to see all these people disappointed," Muschamp said in his postgame interview on the field, “I love it! It's much better being the coach of Florida than Tennessee, I can assure you of that.”
It is expected that Tennessee officials will try to put a damper on any demonstrations while Kiffin is in town with the Alabama team and a police presence will be stepped up near the student section. But according to one wag, “Tennessee needs tacklers, not police!” Alabama is expected to be a heavy favorite and Kiffin’s ears will be crimson by the time he leaves the stadium where he was once king.
royexum@aol.com