Drew Kerekes

The lyrics go, “Runaway Lane, never coming back. You’re lucky Monte Kiffin is your dad. The Pac-10 is what you’re cravin’. Had no chance against Urban or Saban.”

In the wake of Lane Kiffin’s sudden departure from Tennessee to Southern Cal in 2010, The Chris Vernon Show put together that piece, set to the tune of Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train,” as a means of mocking Kiffin for leaving the Vols high and dry after just one season in Knoxville, Tennessee. The same folks are responsible for the memorable “Colonel Reb is Crying” song that satirizes then-Ole Miss head coach Ed Orgeron, and the Kiffin song actually features a mock voiceover of Coach O at the end.

“You’re lucky Monte Kiffin is your dad,” is probably the line that stuck with me the most, though, even though the faux Ed O bit was a surprising treat the first time I heard it. Ever since that song came out, or even before, I feel like there’s been this idea surrounding Kiffin that the only reason he keeps getting football jobs is because of his relationship to the elder Kiffin, who was a longtime NFL defensive coordinator and part of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers staff that won Super Bowl XXXVII.

In other words, nepotism, not merit, is why Lane Kiffin continued to find employment no matter how many times he was fired, according to this thought process

People point to the times Kiffin got fired as evidence for this, from when then-Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis fired him as the team’s head coach in 2008, to when USC fired him from being its head coach on an airport tarmac in 2013 to when Nick Saban fired him from his position as offensive coordinator at Alabama in January 2017 mere days before the College Football Playoff National Championship game.

He must be bad at coaching football if he keeps getting fired, right? Well, no, and Saturday night’s Alabama-Ole Miss game should have killed any doubt concerning Kiffin’s coaching acumen.

There are no moral victories, and Kiffin is quoted as saying, “We came here to win, not play close and covers spreads or any of that crap,” following the Rebels’ 63-48 loss to Alabama. At the same time, I don’t think anyone expected Kiffin to beat Alabama in Year 1 anyway, and he came very close to doing so.

I’ve been watching Alabama football since 1995, and I can’t recall any team making the Crimson Tide’s defense look utterly helpless like I did Saturday night — and I saw DeShaun Watson, Johnny Manziel and Joe Burrow give Alabama fits in the past. Consider this: In the second half, the only Ole Miss possession that didn’t result in points was its final one, when the clock expired at the end of regulation. The Rebels only punted twice in the entire game, both in the first half.

Yes, Alabama’s defense was bad, catastrophically so, but Jimbo Fisher and Texas A&M faced that same defense the week prior and only put up 24 points on the Tide. Kiffin did what Fisher couldn’t: Keep the outcome of an Alabama win in doubt for most of the contest.

Let’s go back and look at that list of teams from which Kiffin was fired. The names of the Oakland Raiders head coaches following his time there are Tom Cable, Hue Jackson, Dennis Allen, Tony Sparano, Jack Del Rio and Jon Gruden. Their combined record? 72-116, zero postseason accomplishments of note. (I’m not counting Gruden’s current season.) Perhaps the head coach isn’t the issue?

Then there’s USC, which was in the midst of NCAA sanctions during Kiffin’s tenure and is currently mired in mediocrity. The Trojans haven’t been terrible since they fired Kiffin, though their records from the previous two seasons have been 5-7 and 8-5, a far cry from their most recent dynasty under Pete Carroll.

Alabama is the only one of the three that has won championships since Kiffin was let go from there, but the fact is Kiffin modernized Alabama’s offense when he arrived there in 2014 as offensive coordinator, thus extending Alabama’s dynastic run when a more traditional offense was no longer viable to winning titles.

The lyrics are technically true: Kiffin is lucky Monte Kiffin is his dad, as that not only gave him a football background, but it likely opened some doors early in Kiffin’s career. But Kiffin isn’t getting hired to coach football solely because of his last name, he’s getting hired because he’s actually a good, knowledgable football coach, one of the best offensive minds in the game today. 

Given a few recruiting cycles to shore up the defensive talent, Kiffin can challenge in the SEC West. I’m willing to bet offensive skill players will want to play in his system now that they’ve seen what it can do. Time will tell if he’s capable of being the CEO of an SEC school at an elite level, but he certainly has that potential, and it helps when you can put together an offensive game plan like we saw Saturday night.

Drew Kerekes is the sports editor at The Meridian Star. He can be reached at dkerekes@themeridianstar.com.