Mike Slive & the Kiffins have mutual friends---several of them; more than a few of them, and of the several groups of folks known by each, some are close and have been for years.
Commissioner Slive is a contemporary of Monte Kiffin, and there is a healthy, mutual respect there---or was.
For years, after Commissioner Slive took office, UT people were saying that he was trying to even the score on the previous commissioenr, who had been viewed in Knoxville as
a friend of the Athletic Department, and especially of the former Athletic Director. In fact this previous commissioner was in office when the NCAA moved on Bama, with the
SEC commissioner's doing nothing to impede the investigation, despite the office's being located caddy-cornered across from The Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, and Bama officials
regularly calling Roy Kramer to say they had been treated unfairly.
During SEC Media Days many people who were overtly hostile to UT, Phillip Fulmer, and UT, would be seen chatting amiably with Commissioner Slive. He makes an effort---a concerted
one to be proper, above reproach, and very, very even handed---tough but fair. But everybody has friends, and lives somewhere. And the minute Commissioner Slive took office, the calls began, asking him to be very aware of how "unfair" his predecessor had been towards Bama, and in favor of UT & Phillip Fulmer's & the other SEC coaches' complaints against Bama for the recruiting violations.
Time after time, a couple of times in public, and more than several times, since having become Commissioner, Slive has taken the hard line towards UT. He has not been unfair,
but he has taken the position just inside the boundary of "hard-nosed," on every incident and request involving UT, in the eyes of many people who follow these things, or are involved in them.
So when Fulmer was pushed out, and the Kiffin group named by Hamilton as head coach, many observors thought that at least if there was an opportunity for a less hard-nosed treatment of
UT, then that would certainly occur. After all, the guy who chose Kiffin was the guy who had the most contact with the commissioner, of all the UT people---Mike Hamilton. Many looked for the way
UT was treaetd to markedly improve.
The people at Bama know this far better than anybody. So here we are, less than 90 days after Mike Hamilton brings in Kiffin, who brings in the new group, and on signing day, UT shoots itself in both feet:
a. Marlon Brown's grandma was offended by a UT coach reportedly cursing in her house, and also using a term, "coon-ass," which can certainly be thought of as racist, if somebody has never heard it before. Reports of alcohol on the breath of the coach have surfaced as well.
b. Lane Kiffin publicly accuses Urban Meyer of a rules violation---and does so totally in error, spontaneously, in front of a partisan UT crowd. Within hours, not only does Meyer, but Jeremy Foley,
the most respected Athletic Director in the SEC---with three national championship appearances in 2-years, including 2-football championship appearances, and a heisman trophy winner within
the same period---is issuing a statement to the media totally disproving Lane Kiffin's erroneous assertion.
So what happes, down in Brimingham, today:
1) Marlon Brown is on the biggest spoorts radio station in Alabama, the day after he was on in Memphis on the biggest sports radio station there, relating the details of how UT's coach offended his grandmother---a lady known to be a dedicated Christian, and community minded lady.
2) Mike Slive reprimands Lane Kiffin, in the media. Even though he was on good terms, he cannot let the cream of the crop in the SEC...that is what UF IS now, as the record shows,
be falsely accused by some guy who just showed up. No commissioner would have NOT reprimanded Kiffin for that kind of screw-up.
And UT now has blown an opportunity to capitalize on Slive ambivalence towards the new regime---and in fact, previous warmth---by painting him into a corner so that HAS TO ACT.
And you can betcha Steve @ South Carolina has not weighed in on it yet---but he will, since Kiffin pointedly told him how little he knew about recruiting rules, in another ill-advised public comment.
Is there a reason that Hamilton did not have advanced knowledge of that kind of announcement that Kiffin blurted out, today?
And in so doing, Kiffin's strategy to use the next couple of days to get some exposure, when everybody else is packing up their recruiting news operations at the competing universities---is overshadowed by his and his coaching staff's screwups.
ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!
