It's Subtraction By Addition

*Yep, another college football post. Sorry.*

There is a term I love: "Failing Upwards." It it used to describe people who, for one reason or another, are terrible at their jobs, yet are not punished for their failures or shortcomings and are instead rewarded with an even better job. I used to work with a guy who was always failing upwards and it drove the rest of us crazy. You can use it in all walks of life and for almost any business. Today we're using it to talk about new USC coach Lane Kiffin.

Kiffin was a USC assistant a few years back. He was good, but not great. He was working there at a time when USC was routinely pulling in the highest-level recruits. Basically, he would have had to work to be bad. He somehow parlayed this into a head coaching job with the Oakland Raiders, despite being only being 31 at the time. Normally this is something to be extremely proud of; Raiders' owner Al Davis has a history of finding good, young assistants and turning them into head coaches. Only Kiffin is no Jon Gruden and immediately started sparring with Davis, who wanted to fire Kiffin after just one season. Instead Kiffin was fired midway into his second season with a record of 5-15.

Despite all his history in football, at this point Al Davis is seen as senile, so when he held a ranting press conference to explain why he fired Kiffin, everyone began to assume that Kiffin just got screwed by working with this crazy old man. Instead of having to go back to being a coordinator, he was rewarded with the head coaching job at the University of Tennessee, which is one of the more storied programs in all of college football. His first season in Knoxville was filled with recruiting violations, potshots at other coaches in the SEC, but not many wins. He finished the season 7-6, which is not good enough in the eyes of Volunteer fans. Still, hopes were high... right up until he ditched Tennessee for the open USC job last week.

Now, I don't blame Kiffin for taking the job. If Tennessee is a Top 20 program, USC is in the Top 5. But, I just don't get why USC would be in such a rush to give this job to a guy who has never proven he can win, doesn't play well with other people and seems to have no idea what the inside of the NCAA rulebook about recruiting looks like. Given that USC seems to be under scrutiny for some of the things that went on during the Pete Carroll regime (which Kiffin was a member of, by the way), one would assume that they would be trying to distance themselves from someone who is a walking secondary recruiting violation. Instead they could be looking at some major issues down the line. Of course, that would only happen if Kiffin doesn't find that a better job has opened up.

-Happy Birthday, Jay!!