Husky Fans: Your Hate for Lane Kiffin Will Make Your Hate for Pete Carroll Seem Tame by Comparison

If you thought you couldn't dislike an opposing coach as much as this guy...

​When Pete Carroll left USC to come coach the Seahawks, Mike Seely threw down the gauntlet for UW grads nationwide: "Any Husky fan who's a real Husky fan fucking hates Carroll, and methinks it'll be a slow thaw once he's patrolling the sidelines in SoDo."

Seely obviously doesn't speak for everyone. (In fact, he mostly speaks for himself. Loudly.) But it's hard to think that his intense hatred of Carroll isn't representative of a good portion of those faithful to the purple and gold.

Carroll, after all, was a winner. (And a whiner.) And because he did this winning (and whining) in-conference, that made him a natural target for any fan of any other Pac-10 team.

With Carroll gone and USC facing potential NCAA sanctions, Husky fans might think that their best Trojan-hating days are behind them. But given the track record of Carroll's successor, Lane Kiffin, they ought to realize they're actually just hitting their prime.

... wait until you get a load of this guy.

​In the pantheon of current college coaches, Kiffin is usually described as the kid born on third who thought he hit a triple. Which is true.

Although it's hard to say where the nepotism ends and the talent begins, it's pretty clear that being the son of defensive guru Monte has been good for Kiffin's career. Especially at his last two stops, the University of Tennessee and USC, where Dad was part of a package deal.

But what the saying gets right in summing up Kiffin's sense of entitlement and the way he's failed upward (in three years as a head coach both in college and the pros, his record is an unimpressive 12-21), it lacks in describing the arrogant glee with which he bends the rules and ruffles feathers. Kiffin not only started out on third, he slid in spikes-first.

Shortly after being hired by Tennessee, Kiffin fired a shot at SEC standard-bearer Urban Meyer, accusing the Florida Gators coach of violating NCAA rules while trying to recruit a top prospect. It was the first of many instances of trash-talking that made Kiffin notorious enough to be immortalized in a Lil Wayne lyric:

Smoke weed, talk shit like Lane Kiffin
whole country in recession, but Wayne different

Brash enough to be name-dropped by hip-hop stars, Kiffin has actually excelled in the one area that probably contributes most to a college coach's success: recruiting. And this, too, is what makes him so deliciously hateable.

Take yesterday, for example, when, Kiffin dominated the national headlines with his offer of a verbal commitment to a quarterback from Delaware who's (wait for it) 13 years old. This came less than 24 hours after USC earned a Top-10 recruiting class, thanks in part to the signing of players Kiffin had first courted while still living in Knoxville.

(Knoxville, btw, being the longer version of Kiffin's son's name, Knox. Let it be known that whatever Kiffin lacks in loyalty, he makes up for in the way he so convincingly feigns loyalty.)

For all of the baggage he brings, Kiffin, if his record is any indication, may not do the one thing required of most hateable coaches: win. And given his career trajectory thus far, there's a good chance that in a year's time he'll have moved on again, to another progressively more high-profile gig, like, say, President of the United States of America. (Don't ask "how." Kiffin's meteoric arc cares not for logic.)

But for now, for 12 months at least, Husky fans can rest assured that though one hated coach has left them behind for greener pastures, another even more promising victim of their taunts has taken his place.