Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Kiffin leads FAU to its first Conference USA crown.
But will he stay at FAU if a school in a better conference calls?
BOCA RATON — The stadium serenaded Lane Kiffin at the winning end Saturday with, “Lane Train.” The players chanted at him in the championship locker room afterward with, “One more year.”
“And did you hear the fans?” Kiffin said. This was an hour after he accepted the Conference USA Championship Trophy. His visor was pushed back on his forehead, a wry smile creeping up his face.
“The fans were saying, ‘We want ‘Bama,’ ” he said.
If you’re late to the party — that’s what Kiffin brought to Florida Atlantic this season — it was all on display again Saturday. The Full Kiffin. The entire experiment of dropping a superior football mind into a middling conference.
There was the make-it-look-easy 41-17 win against North Texas in the Conference USA Championship game. There was everyone watching Kiffin, like he’s some re-invented football shaman. Even Howard Schnellenberger, who coached NFL teams, won a national title at Miami and founded FAU football, called the offense in a 34-0 game, “Flawless.”
And there was Kiffin himself, who remains like no football coach out there. He jokes. He laughs. He tweaks big names. He tweeted a few times just an hour before
Saturday’s game, including a retweet of pro wrestler Ric “Nature Boy” Flair announcing his interest in the Tennessee coaching job.
Kiffin then did what he’s done all year. He directed a first-quarter offense where four different players completed passes, the Wildcat was employed, a fakereverse and receiver-reverse pass were run in succession, 262 yards of offense put up and FAU led, 17-0 (OK, it took the first play of the second quarter to finish a drive for that score).
“Our eyes weren’t in the right place,” North Texas linebacker E.J. Ejiya said.
Is anyone’s with Kiffin? For all the tweets and fake reverses, can you see the football discipline in this season? FAU won its final nine games by double digits. Running back Devin Singletary broke the school-record for touchdowns in a career in just this one season. His 29 touchdowns are two more than Florida totaled all year. Oh, and he threw for another touchdown.
But ask athletic director Pat Chun what illustrated the Kiffin experience and he goes to the previous game at Charlotte. They won by 19 points. But the players were so dissatisfied by winning they declined to celebrate in the normal fashion by singing the school fight song in the locker room.
The team that won three games each of the previous three years had developed a standard beyond the scoreboard. But here’s the other odd part of this — Kiffin constantly thanks the previous coach, Charlie Partridge, who is now a Pitt assistant. He sends clips of big plays, of post-game celebrations.
“I’ve never met him, but I want him to be a part of it,” Kiffin said. “He brought these guys in. This profession has so much change in it. He brought these guys in. He should be part of this.”
And Kiffin? Will he remain part of this? When Texas A&M reportedly pays Jimbo Fisher $75 million over 10 years, it’s just a question of when Kiffin leaves. He notices the small ripple his great year of winning has caused at FAU (Saturday’s crowd was 14,258). He doesn’t seem to be recruiting — no early commitments for FAU, high-school coaches saying he’s not around.
Maybe he doesn’t know if he’ll be around. Maybe he doesn’t want to lie to anyone. Maybe he understands it’ll take some school to come to grips with his odd past and quirky sense of humor in a football world that doesn’t laugh much.
Just two hours after Saturday’s win, Kiffin sent out a picture of his daughter, Landry, writing on a board, “Lane Kiffin tweets too much. He’ll probably tweet this, too.”
No doubt he’s had fun this season. His father, Monte, who is 77, an FAU defensive assistant and has coached four decades across college and the NFL, gave the easy answer why. “It’s fun to win,” he said. It fun to having fun while winning, too. Kiffin is doing