Thoughts from the underground

USC welcomed Lane Kiffin as the new head coach of USC yesterday. If he wasn’t coming with that all-star staff I would be very disappointed. However, with Coach O, Monte Kiffin, possibly Chow and Davis…WOW how can you be against it? I would say that a veteran offensive coordinator will be very important. I do not think that play calling will be an issue if Kiffin is the one calling the plays. Rather it is the lack of experience in big games and a young coach tendencies not to break tendencies and thus becoming predictable to experienced defensive coordinators.  Young Kiffin still needs to grow in this area.

In terms of recruiting, often times when Kiffin was here he was regarded as the second best closer next to Pete. All this talk about recruiting violations is a little bit premature.I do not remember any allegations against USC or Kiffin in particular while at USC in terms of recruiting. My take is that Kiffin needed to make a splash in the SEC because he was regarded as young coach in a tough conference. He went over board to show that he was more than able to complete in what regarded as the best football conference in college football. He went overboard…granted. Somehow I do not see that being an issue in the Pac X. If anything I feel that this signals that USC is pretty confident that the NCAA will not come down hard on the program in terms of violations.

The thing that I find interesting is that Chow and Davis are even considering coming back and being under Kiffin. I heard that Kiffin and his style and appointment to OC directly led to Chow and Davis walking away. I heard they could not work under a brat like Kiffin….The more and more we found out about Pete the more it seems Pete had more to do with it than Kiffin.

In the end I think it is a great hire as a whole.This would be a top tier staff. If Chow, Davis and Dat come in to round out the staff I would call this a HOME RUN by USC.