Lane Kiffin doesn’t seem concerned by sanctions
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If the USC football program needs an overhaul in the way it has been run in the last decade, then someone needs to tell Lane Kiffin.
Asked by emcee Lindsay Soto on Thursday night during a Northern California Trojans club event at the San Francisco Airport Marriott if he needed to do anything differently with a football program that had just been sanctioned by the NCAA in the wake of major transgressions committed under predecessor Pete Carroll, Kiffin said, ‘No we don’t. We need to make sure our players are extremely disciplined on and off the field.’
Kiffin equated USC exerting institutional control over its football program to being a parent to 120 children.
‘Imagine if you also had the responsibility for every parent and every family member they have,’ Kiffin said. ‘It’s a pretty difficult situation and it’s one we’re working on all the time to find better ways to do it.’
Added men’s basketball Coach Kevin O’Neill: ‘We can’t control people 24 hours a day. That’s all there is to it.’
Both coaches said they had met with their current and prospective players and indicated that they didn’t fear any defectors.
‘They’re all coming,’ Kiffin said of the Trojans recruits who had committed to the program.
Kiffin also reminded the Trojans faithful that the school was appealing the sanctions but said ‘regardless of what happens in that appeal, we know this: SC is more powerful than anything else. ... No matter what they try to do to us, it won’t matter because I’ve talked to our players and our recruits and not one kid is wavering one single bit.
‘The message out there is this: They didn’t come to SC to go to a bowl game. They came to SC to get their education, to be part of the Trojan family and play for the most powerful and prestigious program in the history of college football. So if any of you guys are worried out there, don’t worry. SC will always be on top.’
-- Ben Bolch in San Francisco