{"id":6284,"date":"2010-08-12T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2010-08-12T17:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=6284"},"modified":"2010-08-12T02:09:40","modified_gmt":"2010-08-12T07:09:40","slug":"handicapping-lane-kiffins-impact-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/handicapping-lane-kiffins-impact-this-season-6284\/","title":{"rendered":"Handicapping Lane Kiffin’s Impact This Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Lane Kiffin makes me laugh. I can say that because he has never done anything to a team that I really care about. The Raiders mean nothing to me, I detest Peyton Manning so I clearly have no love for Tennessee, and don\u2019t like USC because they are so sickeningly unlikable, but I certainly don\u2019t hate them in any real way – it\u2019s not like they are Ohio State or anything. Based on the amount of press he is getting these days, though, it seems obvious that I am the exception and not the rule when it comes to the degree to which his actions bother me. His actions over the last few years have been very circus-like, and the intense scrutiny the media has placed him under has given the circus at least three rings. I\u2019m just amused by the whole situation but a whole lot of people aren\u2019t. There is a great deal of intensity and bitterness, and people are reacting emotionally and not rationally to him. Anytime a great deal of emotion is involved in a situation bettors have to be particularly aware of what is going on, and what impact it could have on the teams and players involved and, more importantly, on the odds on the games in question. As you try to decode Kiffin\u2019s impact on the college football betting lines this fall, and the opportunities that it will create, here are four things to consider:<\/p>\n

He hasn\u2019t actually won anything – What makes this whole situation so captivating and bizarre is that the guy just isn\u2019t that much of a coach – or at least he hasn\u2019t shown that he is one yet. He was a ridiculous 5-15 with the Raiders, and though his 7-6 at Tennessee was notably better it\u2019s still a long way from a good performance. Overall he has a totally underwhelming 12-21 record. Even Charlie Weis could make fun of what Kiffin has accomplished. If Lane wasn\u2019t the son of Monte Kiffin then he probably wouldn\u2019t be under the microscope that he is. Of course, if he wasn\u2019t the son of Monte then he probably wouldn\u2019t have had all of the opportunities he has had\u00a0 – he\u2019s got his third very high profile job despite only being 35. The point here is that people are spending a lot of time and energy talking about and worrying about a guy who isn\u2019t really worth talking and worrying about. The coverage is very disproportionate.<\/p>\n

Must be something to him – This is the flip-side of the last point. Sure he seems like a lunatic, and sure he has a very highly respected father, but there has to be more to it than that. After all, despite the reputation issues and the lack of real accomplishments the guy has managed to keep getting jobs. Every job he has had he\u2019s gotten at a much younger age than would be the norm. It\u2019s easy to totally write off a guy like this because he seems like a total idiot, but that would be a mistake in this case – there\u2019s something behind the outward stupidity that we don\u2019t get to see.<\/p>\n

Fan sentiment makes people do crazy things – Because people are going to react emotionally, and because every single move is blown up and overstated as soon as it happens there are going to be a lot of people drawn to USC\u2019s games not because of the real opportunities they present but because they want to see the guy get beat. The assumption, then, would be that betting on him would be a good idea because\u00a0all college football handicappers\u00a0will be betting against him and that could mean value. That\u2019s ridiculously oversimplified, of course, but it will be very important in this circumstance to look at where the action is and how the college football odds listed compare to where they should be.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s on a short leash – USC is in a lot of hot water right now. Outside of the lawsuit from the Tennessee Titans over the hiring of the new offensive coordinator none of it is Kiffin\u2019s fault, but Kiffin is going to have to deal with the fallout. The biggest immediate impact is that athletic director Mike Garrett has been replaced with Pat Haden. Haden is a no-nonsense guy who is charged with get the program back on track, and he is going to be very aggressive to do so. Garret hired Kiffin and was a big fan of him – obviously enough of one to unleash the firestorm of controversy that the hiring inevitably caused. Haden not only didn\u2019t hire Kiffin, but he doesn\u2019t seem like the kind of guy that is going to have a lot of patience towards him, either. I don\u2019t think that Haden would hesitate to fire Kiffin after a year if things didn\u2019t go well. It really would make sense since the probation would give a new coach a year to establish themselves before games matter. If Kiffin acted rationally then he\u2019d probably fall in line because of Haden. Now the challenge is to figure out if he is a rational guy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lane Kiffin makes me laugh. I can say that because he has never done anything to a team that I really care about. The Raiders mean nothing to me, I detest Peyton Manning so I clearly have no love for Tennessee, and don\u2019t like USC because they are so sickeningly unlikable, but I certainly don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":6285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[473,472],"class_list":["post-6284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-lane-kiffin","tag-usc-trojans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6286,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6284\/revisions\/6286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}