Poking the SEC in the eye as often as he could this offseason. It's easy to pile on a coach that has brought all of this on himself, coming out of his second loss over his first six games, but it's time for Lane Kiffin to wear this. As college football's top villain, this isn't how it was supposed to look for him in Year 1 at LSU.
And now, excuses are beginning to pile up for the Tigers' coach, who harped on officiating after Saturday night's overtime loss at Kentucky. Bothered by the explanation he received from officials surrounding the Wildcats' successful fourth-and-goal tush push to end the first half, Kiffin said the play should've been blown dead when Kenny Minchey's forward progress appeared to have stopped. "The line (judge) just said, 'Hey, in that situation, there's just too much at stake,'" Kiffin said Sunday.
"For forward progress being stopped, you blow the whistle for protection and because that's the rule. Don't blow it because it's such a big play." Kiffin disagreed with the reasoning for holding the whistle. "The rules are the rules.
So, if you see it that way, then see it that way," Kiffin said. "That's my complaint with it. It all comes down to just blowing a whistle.
So, it is what it is." Kiffin also took issue with the clock operation during overtime on Kentucky's two-point attempt and was bothered that officials gave the Wildcats a timeout instead of flagging them for a false start before Minchey's game-winning keeper. "The false start happens, they're going to move it back, and they're going to kick the extra point, and we're going to go to second overtime," Kiffin said. None of these complaints are made, by the way, if LSU successfully stops Kentucky's two-point try and wins the game, 34-33.
Instead, they're magnified after a superior roster failed to deliver as a double-digit favorite on the road. LSU had a chance to ice the game with 1:46 to play, facing a fourth-and-1 situation from its own 43-yard line. Kiffin's never been shy to go for it, but he was in this instance, on the road in a conference matchup that teeters on the must-win connotation given what's left on the Tigers' schedule.
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