Lane Kiffin

Great guy, competitive, friendly and in-your-face honest. And more than likely the wrong choice to be UCLA's football coach. Jim Mora , and he's no Jr., is 50. I've known Jimmy the kid since he was 25. He was in charge of quality control for the Chargers, and as you know, quality continues to elude the Chargers. But Jimmy the kid was a winner, overflowing with energy and confidence, refreshingly brash but always respectful. People gravitated toward him because he flashed the kind of potential that suggested he was really headed somewhere.

Fans rushed onto the Coliseum field after USC's end-of-spring scrimmage Saturday, lining up about 50 yards deep for quarterback Matt Barkley's signature during an autograph session. Neither Barkley nor the Trojans had been particularly scintillating during the 91-play, no-tackling exhibition. But that didn't deter USC faithful from wanting to share a few moments with Barkley, Coach Lane Kiffin and the rest of the players. USC's spring, marked more by injuries than revelations, is not expected to deter media outlets from ranking the Trojans among the contenders for a national title when training camp opens in August.

"If there were a stock car race between all the frauds, egomaniacs and two-faced weasels I've ever covered, Lane Kiffin would have the pole position all to himself. . . . "Kiffin is a used car salesman with a whistle. Wait, that's not fair to used car salesmen." -- Gene Wojciechowski, ESPN.com :: "Every year Tennessee lawmakers pass a resolution honoring the University of Tennessee's football coach. Not this year. . . . "Republican House Speaker Kent Williams asked members of the chamber Wednesday to hold a voice vote on whether to congratulate Kiffin for his single 7-6 season.

USC tailback Curtis McNeal has enjoyed a quiet spring. No injuries. No uncertainty about grades. Just work on the field, which is just fine with the fifth-year senior. Maneuverings to address depth issues at tailback have provided plenty of drama, but the Trojans' top returning rusher has not been distracted — or sidelined. "I got through it healthy," McNeal said after practice Tuesday, "and I'm looking to continue that. " The Trojans have only two workouts remaining, a practice Thursday and the spring finale at the Coliseum on Saturday.

The week started well enough, USC Coach Lane Kiffin began. His football team even practiced "very well" Tuesday and Wednesday, he continued — and this praise came after he expressed absolute disappointment in the Trojan's 17-14 victory over Virginia last Saturday. But as this week wore on, progress seemed to go backward, culminating Thursday with a showing that left Kiffin concerned as the team heads to Minnesota for Saturday's game. "We've got a long ways to go," he said.

The Times' Gary Klein has learned that USC has settled on its new football coach, and it is a familiar name: Lane Kiffin. Kiffin would replace Pete Carroll, who is now coaching the Seattle Seahawks. Kiffin, the former Oakland Raiders coach, led the Volunteers for only one season and was an offensive coordinator for the Trojans before leaving to coach the Raiders. According to other sources, Kiffin will bring his father and defensive coordinator, Monte Kiffin, and assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator Ed Orgeron to USC with him, and wide receivers coach Kippy Brown will be named interim head coach at Tennessee.

As a high school and college quarterback, Lane Kiffin was known more for his football acumen than his passing or footwork. But USC's coach showed Tuesday that he knows how to dance in the pocket, especially when pressured to address quarterback Matt Barkley's status for Saturday night's game against UCLA. Barkley was sidelined last week against Notre Dame because of a left ankle sprain. The sophomore practiced Tuesday, but he was limited. Asked if he would play against the Bruins, Barkley did not hesitate.

USC's new coaching staff continues to take on a Tennessee flavor. Coach Lane Kiffin announced Wednesday that he has hired assistant James Cregg , Tennessee's offensive line coach last season. Cregg, 36, is the third coach from Kiffin's Tennessee staff to move to USC, joining Ed Orgeron , the defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator, and Monte Kiffin , the defensive coordinator. Before coaching at Tennessee, Cregg was an offensive line assistant for the Oakland Raiders during Kiffin's brief tenure with the NFL team.

More than half of USC's coaching staff already was on the road. Offensive line coach James Cregg left midway through early morning practice Thursday. Afterward, Coach Lane Kiffin was to join his assistants on the recruiting trail. USC plays top-ranked Oregon on Oct. 30 at the Coliseum, but over the next three days Trojans coaches will finish an off-week effort to connect with recruits locally and nationally. "We've got a lot of work done [this week], and we're all over the country," Kiffin said.

After a closer look, USC's exhaustive 2 1/2 -hour search for a new football coach makes perfect sense. To meet USC's standards, Mike Garrett considered five people: Bernie Madoff -- Really unavailable. Ex-Gov. Blagojevich -- "Celebrity Apprentice" prefers the East Coast. Pete Rose -- Not enough games to wager on. Amy Winehouse -- visa problems. Then the brainstorm of Lane Kiffin. I can hear Mike thinking, "He knows the way to the Coliseum, will blow off Tennessee in a heartbeat and has no character or class.

USC tailback Javorious Allen broke through the line of scrimmage and heard the official's whistle ending the play, but he kept running more than 40 yards to the end zone. That, perhaps, was the most telling event Saturday during USC's workout at the Coliseum. It showed that Allen, a redshirt freshman from Florida, was back from a hamstring strain, or at least willing to play through the final stages of recovery from the latest in a series of injuries that have kept him sidelined.

USC's first 10 spring workouts routinely ended with Coach Lane Kiffin providing an optimistic outlook based on the day's events. Not Thursday. Sophomore tailback Tre Madden , who has impressed in his switch from linebacker, fell to the ground without being hit late in the workout. He was assisted off the field because of an apparent left knee injury and was taken to the locker room after practice. Asked if he was concerned that Madden might have suffered a severe injury, a somber Kiffin said, "There's that concern any time with knees, where guys can't really walk afterward.

Hundreds of fans and more than a dozen recruits at the Coliseum on Saturday saw USC players making spectacular touchdown catches, game-breaking runs and momentum-turning defensive plays. It was quite a show. Unfortunately, the highlights were from last season and seasons past, and they appeared on the stadium's giant video board accompanied by a pulsating soundtrack. Meantime, down on the field, the short-handed Trojans completed their third week of spring practice by going through a workout that featured a mostly pedestrian scrimmage period.

USC is free and clear of its two-year bowl ban, but Trojans practices on campus will remain in NCAA-mandated lockdown throughout two remaining years of probation. Players' immediate family members, invited guests of USC senior administrators, recruits and media representatives are the only outsiders allowed inside the gates of Brian Kennedy-Howard Jones Field, keeping what was once a bustling, fan-friendly facility under former coach Pete Carroll a ghost town by comparison.

USC quarterback Matt Barkley threw his seventh interception of spring practice on Thursday and, as Coach Lane Kiffin noted, it wasn't the end of the world. It wasn't the end of Barkley's Heisman Trophy chances, either. Kiffin even joked when asked if he was alarmed over Barkley's wayward practice throws, including the pass picked off Thursday by safety Demetrius Wright. "He can still declare for the supplemental draft, so I can't yell at him quite yet," Kiffin said after the session at Howard Jones Field.

USC, its ranks reduced by injuries and multisport athletes with competitive commitments elsewhere, did not scrimmage as planned Saturday. But several developments unfolded during the Trojans' three-hour practice at the Coliseum that could make things interesting, especially on the jersey-number front. First, Coach Lane Kiffin made it official: Tre Madden , moved last week from linebacker, is now a tailback. "That means this week went pretty well," Madden said, "and they believe in my ability and technique.

Faced with a not-unexpected first-day-on-the-job grilling, Lane Kiffin already seemed to be blowing smoke. . . . Kiffin is the very definition of a polarizing figure, supporters enamored by his youth and vitality and detractors wary of his boorishness and snake-oil-salesman artifice. . . . The coach's sister, Heidi , told Yahoo last fall that a friend of hers used to call her brother "The Helicopter" because "he was always stirring stuff up, always stirring up trouble."

Lane Kiffin has implemented a number of changes at USC since taking over as coach in January. On Tuesday, he really switched things up -- to the delight of one player and the chagrin of two others. James Boyd , a 6-foot-5, 250-pound redshirt freshman, was moved from defensive end to quarterback, a position he starred at for Los Angeles Jordan High. "This is what I wanted when I came out of high school," said Boyd, who participated in only a few drills and acknowledged that it would take time to learn the playbook.

USC's Tre Madden , moved this week from linebacker to tailback, appears more than comfortable at the new position. That shouldn't come as a surprise. His father, Curtis , played fullback at Kansas State, his grandfather Lawrence McCutcheon was a Pro Bowl running back for the Los Angeles Rams, and his uncle, Daylon McCutcheon , was an outstanding running back at La Puente Bishop Amat High before playing cornerback at USC and in the NFL. Madden impressed again Thursday during a physical full-pads practice, running with power and speed and also consistently catching the ball out of the backfield.

USC receiver Robert Woods' comeback from off-season ankle surgery has not gone as anticipated and he will be sidelined all of spring practice, Coach Lane Kiffin said Tuesday. Woods, an All-American, did not practice the first week of workouts but was expected to rejoin the Trojans for drills after their nine-day break for spring vacation. "We thought he would be almost full strength by now, doing everything," Kiffin said. Woods injured his right ankle playing pick-up basketball last spring.