Ever Employable Lane Kiffin Hired By Alabama

Ugh. This guy again.

Proving once and for all that you can’t keep a terrible man down, on Friday it was announced Lane Kiffin had been hired as offensive coordinator by the University of Alabama. That despite Kiffin leaving nothing but a horizon littered with burning bridges behind him when he left his last three jobs.

He’s the son of Monte Kiffin, a highly respected NFL defensive coordinator whose career spans three decades. Like the marginally talented spawn of rich and successful people so often do, Kiffin has shown an impressive propensity for failing upward. Must be nice to have a name that puts you on the fast track to success.

When he was hired by the Oakland Raiders in 2007, Kiffin was the youngest head coach of the NFL’s modern era at age 31. Given his lack of experience and massively bloated ego routinely colliding with that of the late, great Al Davis, that was an experiment doomed to fail from the start. Davis was quite fond of those in his later years.

In fact, Kiffin didn’t come away from that looking all that bad at the time. Davis made a hobby of firing coaches at that point and looked positively unhinged when addressing the situation with the media. Kiffin was clearly in over his head there, but Davis actually did him a solid by going completely off the rails—it made him look a lot more credible.

Then came the University of Tennessee, who scooped Kiffin up in November 2008, just two months after being fired by the Raiders. Makes you wonder if they were super enamored by that notably awful 5-15 record or just though Kiffin would look good in orange. Hopefully the latter, but who knows what’s going on with that program anymore.

The Vols were a very mediocre 7-6 under Kiffin in 2009, making him the obvious choice to replace Pete Carroll at the University of Southern California. The Trojans were bowl ineligible in Kiffin’s first two seasons due to NCAA sanctions incurred under the previous regime, but the remnants of Carroll’s once unstoppable juggernaut over performed.

After going 10-2 the year before, expectations were sky high when USC began the 2012 season ranked as the No. 1 team in the nation. Kiffin’s team quickly reverted to all too familiar mediocrity with a 7-6 record, having lost four of five games down the stretch before embarrassing themselves against Georgia Tech in the Sun Bowl.

Kiffin was on the thinnest of ice after the Trojans became the first team in almost 50 years to start the season ranked No. 1 in the AP poll, but finish unranked. They were quick to pull the plug when he followed it up with a (somehow even less impressive than it sounds) 3-2 start last year.

Honestly, Kiffin is lucky to have lasted that long because the decision to fire him was made midway through the fifth game—a 41-62 blowout loss to Pac-12 opponent Arizona State. They were nice enough to let him finish up and fly home with the team before shitcanning him at the airport and driving away without him.

Kiffin’s failure at USC was so glaringly apparent and his termination so brutal, that for a hot little minute there it seemed like he might actually remain unemployed for a semi-reasonable period of time. Of course not though, that’s just not how the world works.

When it looked like Doug Nussmeier was on his way out at Bama, Kiffin was right there atop Nick Saban’s list of potential replacements. Once again he is rewarded for his failure. Once again he leaves a city of bridges burning behind him and is welcomed with open arms in the next.

Which begs the question: How many times does this guy have to fall asleep in a puddle of his own vomit before people stop inviting him to parties?

I’m starting to think that maybe people just like vomit.