Sunday, July 25, 2010

Kiffin keeps pissing off Tennessee

USC head coach has once again pissed off someone in Tennessee. This time for stealing away Tennesse Titans running backs coach Kennedy Pola. From USC alum and Titans head coach Jeff Fisher. It's not the point that Pola left for a lateral job move. It's the fact that Kiffin hired him away without asking Fisher for permission to talk to him about the job. Now the Titans are staring at going into camp without a running backs coach. The reason why the Trojans need one is because former coach Todd McNair was the fall guy in the cheating scandal.

Pola, who also is an USC alum,and played and coached for the Trojans, is also the uncle of former Trojan and current Pittsburgh Steeler Troy Polamalu. I have no problem with Pola going somewhere that he feels he advance his coaching career. But the way this went down, I don't know if he will get another shot on an NFL coaching staff. Not after leaving one of the longest tenured coaches in the league today. Jeff Fisher is none too pleased with how this all went down.

"I am very disappointed in Lane Kiffin's approach to this,'' Fisher said on Saturday. "Typically speaking, when coaches are interested in hiring or discussing potential employment from coaches on respective staffs there is a courtesy call made from the head coach or athletic director indicating there is an interest in talking to the assistant.




"So I am very disappointed in the lack of professionalism on behalf of Lane, to call me and leave me a voice mail after Kennedy had informed me he had taken the job. It is just a lack of professionalism."

Word is, that Pola wasn't Kiffin's first choice. Eric Bienemy, the running backs coach for the Vikings got a promotion and pay raise to keep this scenario from happening to them. If Kiffin had any friends left in Tennessee, he doesn't have any now.

Kiffin is now trying to explain another mess he's created.

"We reached out to Kennedy Pola [on Friday] to gauge whether he had any possible interest in returning to USC before we moved forward with the process," Kiffin said.






"Kennedy said he would think about it and get back to us today. Once Kennedy did call back earlier today, out of my great respect for Coach Fisher I immediately reached out to Coach to make him aware of the situation. I have spoken with Coach Fisher and he now has an accurate understanding of the timeline of events," Kiffin said.
I think Kiffin needs to keep his mouth shut and coach since it seems like he can't do anything on the up and up.

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