Lane Kiffin is already taking advantage of the NCAA’s new rules that allow coaches to retweet and share posts about recruits, which took effect Monday.
Some coaches used the NCAA’s new rule to recruit. Lane Kiffin used it to troll Tennessee.
He wasted no time getting in a shot at his old team.
Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports
The Alabama offensive coordinator was Tennessee’s head coach for one season back in 2009. Kiffin didn’t exactly leave Tennessee on good terms when he bolted to USC, as you may recall. Now he’s sending some burns in the Vols’ direction on Twitter.
Tennessee loaded with top-level recruits -- but they're leaving the state https://t.co/gSTNhKtftJ
— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) August 1, 2016
He wouldn’t have been able to do this before Monday, as NCAA rules prohibited coaches from tweeting anything about specific recruits like the ones mentioned in the article.
Kiffin might not be totally wrong here — the Vols signed two of the state’s eight blue-chip recruits in the class of 2016, a decrease from 2015, when they signed four of the state’s 11 blue-chippers, according to the 247Sports Composite. Tennessee is also a geographically odd state when it comes to recruiting. Its long, narrow shape means other schools might be closer to Tennessee recruits in some areas even if the schools are in other states.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Kiffin take the offensive online. He retweeted a subtweet by Kentucky’s coach after flipping four-star quarterback Mac Jones from the Wildcats in June, and he’s trolled Tennessee fans before:
— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) July 5, 2016
This all comes after a Tennessee PAC compared him — unfavorably — to a politician in 2014.
It’s worth noting that besides the one tweet trolling Tennessee fans, his timeline Monday was also full of retweets from recruits.
