When Lane Kiffin landed his first head coaching job since being fired by Southern California in 2013, he promised that his failure and subsequent rebirth as Alabama offensive coordinator had changed him for the better.
It remains to be seen how the new Florida Atlantic coach performs on the field this fall and beyond. However, it’s evident he hasn’t learned from the public relations missteps that bedeviled him at Tennessee and USC.
Kiffin admitted in an interview with the Sun Sentinel, he has been reaching out to Art Briles for offensive advice after hiring Briles’ son, Kendal, to be his offensive coordinator.
“Obviously, he’s done unbelievable things on offense,” Kiffin said. “It’s his system that he started years and years ago. Every once in a while, I’ll text or call him and bounce something off of him.”
Art Briles no doubt has a wealth of expertise in how to run a college offense. His success makes that obvious. And it’s obvious Kendal is going to reach out to him for advice.
But the choice of Kiffin make public his relationship with someone who was fired amid a sexual assault scandal at Baylor raises questions about his ability to still understand the optics of his decisions.
Kiffin already had raised eyebrows with the hiring of Kendal Briles, who was on the staff with his dad during the Baylor scandal. He also signed former Florida State quarterback De’Andre Johnson two years after his dismissal for punching a woman.
This latest gaffe from Kiffin amounts to an unforced error that could of have avoided, bringing unnecessary scrutiny to a coach trying to rehabilitate his own image.
A case of bad publicity simply being bad publicity.
