By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – There’s a high-profile football game Saturday night in Tiger Stadium.
First, there’s an impactful court hearing Thursday in Baton Rouge.
Such is the state of LSU football, which is a continuing media fascination because … this is the program that this century has been headed by an ensemble of some of the most colorful, and brash, coaches anywhere in the game: Nick Saban, Les Miles, Ed Orgeron, Brian Kelly and now, the Portal King, Lane Kiffin.
And because that court hearing appears to be the next step down a path that could put bonafide former pro players back in college uniforms, much to the dismay of the rest of the Southeastern Conference, whose other 15 members are reportedly considering shunning LSU, boycotting Tiger teams or even evicting them from the league altogether, per a report Monday by Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger.
Meanwhile Monday, Kiffin entered his first game-week press conference in Baton Rouge focusing on his team’s painstaking preparation for its season opener at 6:49 Saturday evening against Clemson in prime time on ABC.
He talked about the mock game, mirroring every phase of a home weekend including a Friday night hotel stay, position meetings, the team parade down Victory Hill, the Golden Band from Tiger Land blaring school songs during the four quarters and going through a halftime performance like it will Saturday night, halftime snacks in the locker room, even TV timeouts and in-game, on-field promotions (last year at Ole Miss, Kiffin came off the sidelines to participate in a surprise proposal during a break in an actual game, albeit a crushing of The Citadel).
“We made it as real as we could make it for them … this will be about the preparation, not the hype,” he said. “I would hope the way that we work, the time we put into it, and the preparation that we do over these seven months, is what people brought us here to do,” he said.
Then the first question (and the third, fourth and fifth) from the media in the LSU football building veered away from the matchup of Tigers vs. Tigers and toward the high-stakes circus, with players who aspire to line up in purple and gold after cashing pro paychecks due in court Thursday.
And Kiffin embraced it. “That’s a great question,” he said, launching into an explanation of his willingness to keep the door open as long as it’s permitted – which, as it turns out, is Friday, when all SEC teams must declare the 105 players who will wear their uniforms this fall (until a court intercedes, presumably).
“I think we create systems that help for people coming in late,” he said, citing Ole Miss transfer quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who steered Kiffin’s last Rebels team along a run to the national championship semifinals, as a late summer arrival who blossomed quickly.
“… As a quarterback,” said Kiffin, “so I think we could do it with other players.”
Why would he welcome as many as five into the Tigers camp at this stage? His NFL coaching background – he was head coach of the Raiders in his early 30s, and his father was a career defensive genius in the league – gives him a different perspective, he explained, than most in college football.
“I feel like everybody’s thinking here come these guys who’ve been in the NFL for 4-5 years … (but they are) players that maybe went to a mini camp or got cut in a training camp on a 90-man roster. They didn’t make final rosters. So we would add players that we think would help our team win … if there’s players that they tell us we can add, we’re gonna look at it and see whatever gives us the best chance to win,” he said.
“Even if it’s a couple players that maybe don’t even start, if it makes your team better, and it’s legal to do, and your players want it, I’ll take the hit publicly for it, ‘cause that’s my job.”
Kiffin said he consulted the team’s leadership council, and got unanimous approval to add players if permissible. The rationale, he said, was “this is how it works at the next level, and this is how the real world works.”
He said LSU has done nothing counter to SEC recommendations, which have been sought in real time as the issue evolves.
“Will football follow SEC orders? Of course, we will.”
But is all the legal drama draining the Tigers’ focus away from Clemson?
“I’ve lived in chaos for a long time, and I like to say, ‘chaos is OK as long as it’s controlled chaos.’ This concern about ‘are the players focused for the game,’ we’ve had that question before (last season at Ole Miss, about Kiffin’s possible exit) …. Our team’s gonna understand why we do what we do,” he said. “I went to the players and they wanted to do it, so it’s not like chaos that comes in and they don’t understand it.
“It doesn’t matter if national media understand why we do what we do for our team, or other fan bases. It just matters if these guys do.”
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com