Lane Kiffin became the first USC football coach to vote in the USA Today coaches’ poll since John Robinson, and it didn’t take long for him to be caught in a lie.
On Tuesday, Kiffin was told that Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez voted his team No. 1 in the coaches’ poll. When asked for his vote, Kiffin responded:
“I would not vote USC No. 1, I can tell you that,” according to the LA Daily News.
USA Today, which administers the poll, set the record straight on Thursday by revealing that Kiffin in fact voted his team No. 1. When contacted by USA Today about misrepresenting the truth, Kiffin backpedaled.
Kiffin said he meant that he wouldn’t vote USC No. 1 if he were in the media or coaching another team.
“We have less players than everybody else,” Kiffin said. “So looking at it from the outside, I wouldn’t (vote USC No. 1). Did I? Yeah, I did. That’s not based off of 75 vs. 85. That’s based off of (USC players) Matt Barkley, T.J. McDonald and Robert Woods and Marqise Lee. When everybody has the same record, I can’t go into a meeting with our players and have them say, ‘You put that team and that team ahead of us.’ That’s why I did that.”
I don’t buy Kiffin’s “clarification” any more than I buy Jim Mora’s excuse that he wasn’t taking a shot at USC when he said UCLA doesn’t have murders a block away from campus. Kiffin wanted to look good to the public, but his move backfired. This is just another reason why I don’t believe Kiffin when he says things like this. He may be a good football coach, but the truth is he’s disingenuous.
