College football analyst Tim Brando did not hold back when he recently aired his opinions on LSU head coach Lane Kiffin.
Brando referenced Kiffin's alleged "narcissism" in the coach's decision to do an interview with Vanity Fair, insinuating that it was done purely out of self-interest to justify why he "abandoned" his Ole Miss team when they were possibly on the brink of winning it all.
“This was an example of Lane’s narcissism still being so great that he decided through a publication based in New York that’s got liberal tendencies out the wazoo, to utilize it solely for his justification for abandoning a team that was on the precipice of playing for, and maybe even winning a national championship,” Brando said in an interview via 3 Man Front.
He went on to elaborate upon his interpretation of Kiffin's actions, indirectly crediting the Rebels for Kiffin even making it to this high point in his career.
“So much so, that he decided to not just throw a state under the bus, not just to throw a region of the country he represents as an SEC coach under the bus, but a school that without their presence in his career, would not have gotten him to where he is today," Brando said.
He did not stop there, either. Brando continued to further, noting at the end of the statement that he has defended Kiffin many times. He also noted that he has never heard Archie Manning speak ill of anyone, but that Kiffin is an exception.
"The lesson that I think that we need to maybe teach (Lane Kiffin) yet again is that just because the decimal point is on your check where it is, it doesn't give you license to be this stupid. That's what that was. Stupid, arrogant, condescending and everything you never want to see in a leader of men."
Did Lane Kiffin actually deserve what Tim Brando said about him?
There's no denying that Brando took this point quite far, to the point it almost sounds like an attack. But was it truly warranted?
Well, that starts with the interpretation of Kiffin's interview with Vanity Fair about LSU and other topics. It's a matter of whether or not he used it as a platform to try to defend himself and take a shot at Ole Miss, or if he had other intentions. Unless Kiffin himself comes out and talks about that specific subject, which is unlikely, we won't have the answer.
The fact that Brando calls Kiffin a narcissist and goes on to call his actions, though not clearly pointing at Kiffin as a person, several derogatory terms that hinge on the edge of personally insulting.
On top of this, Kiffin has already apologized for his comments and clarified that he did not mean them as they were taken.
Lane Kiffin's comments and the apology that followed
Kiffin claimed in the article that he had previously lost out on players because their parents wouldn't let them go to Ole Miss due to Mississippi's rocky history with race.
“I really apologize if anybody at Ole Miss or in Mississippi was offended by that,” Kiffin said to On3 after the fallout.... I was asked a lot of questions on a lot of things, and Ole Miss has been wonderful to me and to my family.
“I was asked questions about the differences in recruiting, and I said a narrative that we battled there from some out-of-state black parents and grandparents was not wanting their kid to move to Mississippi. That’s a narrative that coaches have been fighting forever. It wasn’t calculated by bringing it up.”
And, to be fair, the Rebels have taken multiple steps to distance themselves from their former close ties to the Confederacy, including banning confederate flags at games and eliminating Colonel Reb as a mascot.
So, is Brando right? Well, that's just as much of a matter of opinion as the comments he made about Kiffin.
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