Controversial Remarks
On February 5, 2009, Kiffin accused Urban Meyer of the University of Florida cheating in front of a crowd of 1,000 at the Knoxville Convention Center. This was part of bragging that he had snagged a Florida recruit on Thursday morning when he started bragging about Richardson, who spurned the Gators after a visit to Knoxville last weekend.
"I'm going to turn Florida in right here in front of you," Kiffin told the crowd. "As Nu'Keese was here on campus, his phone keeps ringing. And so one of our coaches is sitting in the meeting with him and says, 'Who is that?' And he looks at the phone and says, 'Urban Meyer.'
"Just so you know, you can't call a recruit on another campus. But I love the fact that Urban had to cheat and still didn't get him."
This is incorrect. Calling a recruit who is making an official visit does not violate any rules in the NCAA or the SEC or even in the Pac-10, where Kiffin coached with USC this decade.
Kiffin accomplished little this time other than angering Florida, which plays the Vols in Gainesville on Sept. 19. By mid-afternoon Thursday, Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley was sniping back at Kiffin and demanding a public apology.
"It is obvious that coach Kiffin doesn't know that there is not a rule precluding phone contact," Foley said.
Then Slive reprimanded Kiffin for "directed public criticism of other member institutions," although no fine or further penalty was levied.
Finally, Kiffin apologized, while he was en route from Nashville to Memphis for another recruiting celebration.
"In my enthusiasm for our recruiting class, I made some statements that were meant solely to excite those at the breakfast," Kiffin said. "If I offended anyone at the University of Florida, including Mr. Foley and Urban Meyer, I sincerely apologize. That was not my intention."
The people of Pahokee, though, are a different story.
Kiffin said Thursday he ordered Richardson and his close family friend, Terrilynn Jenkins, to fax his signing papers somewhere other than Pahokee High, because he didn't trust people at the school.
"Someone at the school was going to screw it up. The fax machine wouldn't work, or they would have changed the signatures, all the things that go on in Pahokee," Kiffin said. "The aunt (Jenkins) took it over to a junior high, found a fax machine that worked and faxed them over to us at 7:00, and I kept it in a drawer until their 1:00 press conference."
Pahokee coach Blaze Thompson, who guided Richardson through much of his recruiting process, said Kiffin's actions and comments made him angry.
"You're basically burning a bridge," Thompson said. "That wasn't very smart of him to do that."
