Kiffin faces music at SEC coaches meeting, doesn't flinch

DESTIN, Fla. -- They stuck the SEC coaches meetings where the sun didn't shine.

Seemed about right. By the end of the day, it seemed like somebody wanted to shove something somewhere.

On the basement floor of a Gulf Coast resort, shielded from trade winds and tourists, the 12 league coaches wasted a perfectly good afternoon in encounter therapy. OK, so it was really a four-hour meeting filled with the usual offseason subject matter that would make your eyeballs melt.

•  Kiffin unapologetic

Except at some point they had to admit the obvious: Everybody Hates Lane is not a new CBS prime time show. It's SEC reality. You might have heard this offseason there has been some sniping down South. Lane Kiffin at Florida. Florida back at Kiffin. The SEC at Kiffin. Kiffin at everyone, everywhere you turn.

Tennessee's six-months-on-the-job coach has recruited well in the process of alienating several of his peers. This is the place where they interacted formally for the first time.

Kiffin: '... I think they (kids) respond to confidence a lot. We're not backing down.' (US Presswire)

If this was grade school, the coaches would have been sent to the principal's office. Considering they are millionaires in the country's richest football conference, they settled for a security guard. Her duty was scrawled on a dry erase board outside of a meeting room at the annual schmoozefest known as the SEC spring meetings:

NO Media Beyond This Point

Just to make it clear, the rent-a-cop was there to keep us away from them, not them away from each other.

"Oh noooo," the guard assured.

This used to be a laidback place where business could be handled in private. Steve Spurrier stood up 10 years ago at one of these things and accused former Alabama coach Mike DuBose of cheating. Spur Dog and his conference mates basically told DuBose to handle his business right or they would handle it for him.

Fine, good. Now what time is the reception by the pool?

Not anymore. The SEC offseason has been marked by, shall we say, angst. Maybe the most in a decade since the coaches stepped up on DuBose. Most of all, everyone is upset this year that Kiffin is lobbing bombs without ever having coached a college game. Even Spurrier waited until he had won an SEC title or two until he started tweaking Phillip Fulmer's nose.

A bunch of us media hacks traveled here in this depressed economy to see what form all this trash talking would take. So far, it's been worth the trip because The Big Orange isn't squeezed out.

"As you look at kids nowadays, I think they respond to confidence a lot," Kiffin said unapologetically. "We're not backing down."

There's an equal amount to like and dislike. Kiffin has brought swagger and an 0-0 record as a college head coach to Knoxville. The staff is sterling. Eleven players have left the program which is not to be unexpected after a coaching change. A lot of folks want to see the youngest coach in Division I-A fall flat on his face.

Tennessee AD Mike Hamilton is staking his job that Kiffin won't.

South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier actually started the offseason shenanigans when he wondered out loud months ago if Kiffin had taken the NCAA recruiting test before calling recruits. Kiffin, indeed, was street legal with the NCAA when he hit the recruiting trail.

"I'm still waiting for Coach Spurrier's apology for calling me out the first day I was there," Kiffin said Tuesday morning.

By Tuesday evening, word had gotten back to Spur Dog of Kiffin's comment. It made great theater when the two were standing a few feet away from each other following the meeting.

"I didn't accuse you of cheating," Spurrier said sternly to Kiffin. "I never said you broke any rules."

The pair then rode up an elevator together to continue their, uh, discussion.

That was after the supposed main event, behind closed doors of course. For the first time since Kiffin did accuse Urban Meyer of cheating (in February), they met and sat in the same meeting room.

Never mind that Kiffin was quickly reprimanded and apologized in the same day. The tenuous ice bridge that once existed between the two rival programs is now an iron curtain. The only thing better Tuesday would have been a seating arrangement in alphabetical order, K being next to M among SEC football coaches.

"I said [to Kiffin], 'Hello, how are you?' Meyer said. "It's all good. It's a non-issue."

If you believe that, then sell me your tickets to Tennessee-Florida on Sept. 19.

"I did ask for adjoining rooms with Coach Meyer," Kiffin said earlier with a smile.

DuBose faced the Spurrier firing squad -- and didn't survive. (Getty Images)

And so it goes. This is Desperate Housewives with visors. Snarky, snippy, cheap. Kiffin has brought out something in the staid SEC that is usually reserved only for football Saturdays.

A revenge motive.

"The key word is professionalism," Meyer said. "I can't say it's real comfortable [here] because it's not. You're talking about your livelihood, you're talking about your job.

A few years ago, there was so-called Fulmer Rule in the SEC. If you had a problem with a rival school cheating -- like the former Tennessee coach did with Alabama -- you were to go through conference channels instead of ratting out the offender.

Then came the Saban Rule. Alabama's coach was such an effective recruiter that NCAA legislation was developed to keep head coaches off the road for a period during the spring. Nick Saban is still steaming over that one.

During a Wednesday meeting, SEC commissioner Mike Slive intends to implement the Kiffin Rule. In other words, telling his coaches to stop the bull----.

Whatever happened to The Golden Rule?

"He's playing you guys perfect," Tennessee hoops coach Bruce Pearl said of Kiffin.

Pearl is the guy who advised Kiffin that it's good to be hated. That means you're doing something right in the SEC.

"My goal was to be the least popular coach in the SEC in a year," Pearl said. "He managed to do it in a week.

"I know one of the biggest problems when I took over was the players didn't believe. What I'm saying is, your coach better believe. He's got something different ... I get him. I get him in the sense that, look at how they're recruiting. You have to do that with a certain confidence and a certain swagger. He's probably said some things that other people were probably afraid to say. I truly believe he's misunderstood.

"There's nothing to dislike about him."

It's clear Pearl hasn't been here long enough.