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Lane Kiffin falls on his feet again, hired as Alabama offensive coordinator

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By Levi Damien
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Christian Petersen

There is a seemingly endless list of NFL and big time college programs who line up to inflict Lane Kiffin upon themselves. It was ridiculous before and now I just don't have words for it. His latest gig is that of offensive coordinator for the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Lane got in the door as the son of Monte Kiffin, the architect of the cover-2 scheme which is widely used defensive scheme in football these days. Lane rose from position coach at USC to NFL head coach for the Oakland Raiders in two years time. Al Davis wanted Steve Sarcisian but Sarc turned him down to take the head coach position at University of Washington. So, Davis settled for "Lance".

After a single season with the Raiders, Lane had already worn out his welcome. Davis tried to get him to resign his position but he refused. By the fourth game of the following season, Davis had had enough.

Kiffin's list of insubordination toward Davis had gotten long enough that Al fired him "with cause" - meaning he didn't have to pay him the rest of his contract.

The big show-his-butt moment for Kiffin came when he ran :30 seconds off the clock to end the first half of a game and trotted Sebastian Janikowski out to attempt a 76-yard field goal. That move was the last straw and the little stunt was undoubtedly used as evidence against Kiffin's claims to the rest of the money in his contract.

The imprint of Al Davis' shoe hadn't even come out of the back of Kiffin's jeans before the University of Tennessee was on the phone wanting him to take over as head coach. His dad, Monte, came with him as a package deal.

Lane immediately started pissing on the legs of other head coaches in the SEC with his accusations of recruiting violations while simultaneously practicing some dirty recruiting no-nos of his own. Then after just one season at Tennnessee, he bolted for his dream job as the head coach at USC.

He spent three seasons running the Trojans into the ground before being fired midway through last season following going 3-3 to start Pac-12 play. Ed Orgeron took over as interim head coach and immediately turned around the program, rattling off 4-straight wins, and leading them to a postseason birth where they would thrash Fresno State in the Las Vegas Bowl.

Then, despite inexplicably sabotaging USC and its many top recruits for most of the season, Nick Saban asked him to come to Alabama as a consultant. Alabama was summarily knocked out of the National Championship picture by in-state rival Auburn and later got routed by Oklahoma State in the Sugar Bowl.

You can see how that consulting worked so well that Kiffin was hired as their offensive coordinator. Naturally. Well, congratulations Alabama, you deserve what you get. I expect within a couple seasons we will be having this same conversation.

Until then, we have this:

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