Lane Kiffin Acts Like The Petulant Child Again, Blaming Referees For Loss To Stanford

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows I'm not a Lane Kiffin fan.  I feel that Kiffin is one of those coaches who routinely places blame on others for his own shortcomings.

That being said, he still had his team in a position to beat Stanford on Saturday night.  With the score tied, a USC wide receiver caught a pass and attempted to go out of bounds to stop the clock.  Close observation of slow-motion replay showed that the player landed in bounds with a knee before he slid out of bounds.  The time on the game clock was 0:01 as he hit the ground.

Kiffin is telling anyone who will listen today that apparently he had some sort of agreement with the sideline official nearest him that he would call timeout as soon as the play was whistled dead.  He feels (and is probably right) that, with one play left in the game, his kicker could have made the game-winning field goal.

While the play was being reviewed, Kiffin reminded side judge Brad Glenn to tell the head referee that he had requested the timeout, and he said he received an assurance that the timeout would be called if it was ruled after the review that there was one second left."I was basically lied to," Kiffin said Sunday. (emphasis is mine)

Please explain your rationale to me, Coach Kiffin.

Is the referee supposed to call timeout for you? When you run down the field after said official, after the play is already over, calling timeout as you go...is that how it works?  When the official came back in and said that time had expired and that there was no time left on the clock...just how exactly were you lied to there?


Let me lay out your two scenarios here so that you can easily understand:

• Your player is ruled out of bounds, and the play stops at one second.  Your referee buddy who said he'd call timeout if there was a second left is correct in this regard.  In fact, I'm quite sure that this is exactly what the official meant when he told you that.
• The real result: your player lands in bounds with a second left, and in the process of continue to slide out of bounds, the clock runs out.  Despite the fact that he was down with a second to go, the clock will not stop.  In real time, there was no opportunity to call timeout for you at all.  The referee is still correct.

My big problem with Kiffin is how he pushes the blame off himself.  It's not his fault that his QB/WR didn't understand that he can simply go down when he catches the ball and Kiffin can call timeout there, right?  It's not his fault that USC failed to score in triple overtime, and that his defense couldn't hold Stanford, right?

Let's be perfectly clear...it's the referee's fault.  He lied to Kiffin.  That's the story that Kiffin wants to make clear going forward.  USC should have won if the referee had only done what he promised to do.

Personally, I think Kiffin knows that his job would have been saved for another year had he beaten Stanford and he knows he's skating on thin ice now.