We start Friday with news about Tennessee and their “we haven’t hired him yet” hire Lane Kiffin:

Ron Higgins of The Memphis Commercial-Appeal has been a jackhammer in terms of repeated calls for Phillip Fulmer’s ouster at Tennessee.  Higgins first called for the big guy’s head after LAST year’s Florida game.

Now, having gotten his wish, it sounds as though he’s ready to take aim at Kiffin.  In fact, he says that if Mike Hamilton does hire Kiffin it “would be an admission that Tennessee is a second-rate program, not on par with Alabama and Florida.”  Oh, no he di’in’t!

We’ve said that Kiffin has the most questionable resume of the candidates Tennessee considered.  But to suggest that his hiring will be a flop… because he’s 33 (a closing argument by Higgins)… is a tad over-the-top.

The guy is unproven.  There’s no debating that.  He may prove to be a total flop.  He may prove to be decent.  He may prove to be great.

His lack of experience means he should get the opportunity to sink or swim BEFORE his epitaph is written.

If Tennessee had hired Ed Orgeron as head coach, then there would a track record of failure.  With Kiffin, there’s just not much track record at all.  The same would have been the case with any number of assistants/coordinators Hamilton might have selected. 

So, we’ll try to reserve judgement on this until after Kiffin has at least coached a game.  Or been introduced as the coach.  Then we’ll slaughter him.

As for the man we believe Kiffin will replace, Fulmer took part in Tennessee’s traditional “last tackle” drill on Thanksgiving.  When asked if he’d ever participated before, he said, “No, (before) it wasn’t my year to be the last tackle.”

Safety Eric Berry, who has 12 career interceptions and the SEC’s all-time return yardage record in just 25 games played, says, “we know whoever comes in has quite some shoes to fill.”

Jonathan Crompton will probably get the start tomorrow against Kentucky.  Nick Stephens is back on the second-string following a foot injury to BJ Coleman.

Here’s a look at the tenure of defensive coordinator John Chavis, who plans to quietly get out of Dodge once the Kentucky game is finished.

Finally, some guy named Pennington compares Tennessee football to General Motors and suggests Hamilton’s hire needs a fresh way of thinking… because Tennessee has already declined with the “I’ll out-athlete you” approach.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 28th, 2008 at 7:53 am and is filed under Homepage, News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.