Add Lane Kiffin to the swell of support for Ed Orgeron at USC.
The ex-USC coach said on a Los Angeles radio station Thursday that Orgeron, who’s piloted the Trojans into the top 25 since Kiffin was fired in late September, should be the program’s next coach.
“Ed has done the Pete Carroll thing to the fullest,” he said.
Orgeron is one of 16 finalists for the Maxwell Coach of the Year, and he blew away our CFT coach of the year poll with 41 percent of the vote (Duke’s David Cutcliffe was second with 10 percent).
Since taking over for Kiffin, Orgeron is 5-1 with a solid win at Oregon State and a BCS-altering victory last weekend against Stanford. His only loss came in a war of attrition at Notre Dame, which didn’t affect USC’s chances of playing for a Pac-12 title. A win at Colorado this weekend would set USC up for a possible Pac-12 Championship play-in game against UCLA at the Coliseum.
CFT’s Chris Huston laid out the argument against hiring Orgeron, though passing on him would create a short-term PR nightmare for Pat Haden. Of course, if the guy Haden hires -- Kevin Sumlin, Chris Peterson or someone else -- brings USC back to its Pete Carroll-era prominence, the Coach O support would die out quickly.
The Kiffin era seems like ages ago, even though it hasn’t even been two months since his dismissal. He was asked if he had any regrets, and offered this response:Lane Kiffin on regrets: ``I’d probably let somebody run the offense. Be more around the campus. Be with the players more.’' #USC
— InsideUSC (@InsideUSC) November 21, 2013