Lane Kiffin sent a one word tweet about leaving Tennessee 14 years ago
Friday marked the 14 year anniversary of Lane Kiffin's shocking departure from the Tennessee Vols to take over as the head coach at USC. Kiffin spent 14 months as the head coach at Tennessee, going 7-6 during his lone, albeit memorable, season with the Vols. There was plenty of reminiscing this week on various social […]
Friday marked the 14 year anniversary of Lane Kiffin's shocking departure from the Tennessee Vols to take over as the head coach at USC.
Kiffin spent 14 months as the head coach at Tennessee, going 7-6 during his lone, albeit memorable, season with the Vols.
There was plenty of reminiscing this week on various social media platforms about the night Kiffin left for USC — including lots of "this is what I was doing when I heard the news" types of stories.
Kiffin, in fact, replied to a tweet asking if fans remembered what they were doing when they heard the news by sending a one-word response.
Yes.
That's probably the funniest thing that he could've tweeted in response to that question.
I know there are plenty of fans who still have disdain for Kiffin because of his decision to leave Tennessee. The timing of it all put the Vols in quite a mess (they hired Derek Dooley because of that timing).
But it's still hard to blame Kiffin for leaving. It was his dream job. At the time, he was a USC guy through and through. And that's a job that doesn't come open often. If the roles were reversed, Tennessee fans would expect a VFL to leave a job after one year to come home to Rocky Top.
It was clear that Kiffin wasn't quite ready for a job that big (Tennessee or USC). He didn't last at USC and it wasn't until after his stint as Nick Saban's offensive coordinator at Alabama that he found his way as a head coach.
And let's be honest, the stories of that wild January night in 2010 are worth it all these years later.
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