thesportsfag | my gay sports blog

During his introductory press conference at USC, Lane Kiffin said that Tennessee is one of the top ten coaching gigs in the country, but apparently Duke head coach and two-time former Tennessee Vol assistant David Cutcliffe doesn’t agree with the chosen one.

Cutcliffe announced today that he will remain at Duke. With Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp and Air Force coach Troy Calhoun also removing their names from consideration, Tennessee Athletic Director Mike Hamilton is scrambling to find a new head coach as national signing day approaches.

Apparently, the sticking point with Cutcliffe was over assistant coaches that would be held over from the Lane Kiffin fiasco. Seems to me that if Cutcliffe was your man you’d let him hire his staff.

Lane Kiffin did what he needed to do in the off season. He had to sell the Tennessee faithful and recruits that he was the right hire in Knoxville. But, as Lou Holtz is famous for saying

Promises are like snowballs. They are easy to make but hard to keep.

And Kiffin will be making snowballs in hell this weekend. During the off season, Kiffin bragged about being able to get a commitment from Nu’Keese Richardson, a wide receiver from Florida, despite what he felt were recruiting violations committed by Florida coach Urban Meyer. Those claims were proved false. Kiffin also claimed he couldn’t wait to sign ‘Rocky Top’, the Tennessee fight song, all night long after the Vols beat Florida this year. Get the snow ready.

Kiffin’s not a likeable guy for sure and as he gears his Volunteers up for the ass kickin of the century it puts me in the unenviable position of pulling for Urban Meyer to do something unlikeable.

Urban Meyer isn’t the kind of guy that easily forgets. Meyer, who all but banned Gator legend Shane Matthews from the university for speaking critically of the Gator program during his radio talk show, is not known for letting things slide. Ask Georgia head coach Mark Richt who last year had to spend some extra time on the sideline watching the Gators celebrate their victory over Georgia because Meyer called some unnecessary timeouts. The timeouts were payback for the Bulldogs over-celebration of a first quarter touchdown the year before against the Gators.

The SECs love affair with all things Alabama is widely rumored to have led to several phone calls between Meyer and his former school Utah as they prepared to battle the Crimson Tide in last year’s Sugar Bowl. Not only does this coach not forget he usually extracts some measure of revenge.

I don’t expect Urban Meyer to leave Tebow in after Tebow gets his Heisman numbers but he certainly will not take his foot off the brakes when the backups play.