Lane Kiffin, Tennessee’s Brand, and You

It’s the day after signing day and we couldn’t be more happy to see it go. There something pedophilic about grown men getting off on where a 17 year old chooses to continue their education that rubs us the wrong way.

That said, we can’t help but notice that the same familiar names annually seen at the top of the polls are perennially have some of the topped ranked classes in the nation. There is a direct correlation between recruiting rankings and on-field performance.

On Sports 180, we looked up the number of stars that each of the players in Mel Kiper’s most recent mock draft were given by Scout when entering college. There were 16 4-star players, 14 5-star players, and 2 3-star players.

While none of this is an exact science (2 years ago more 3-star players were drafted in the first round than 4 or 5-star), we can determine that the recruiting ranking can let a fan base know the power of their school’s individual brand.

Let’s look at Scout’s top 5 classes of the year: 1) Florida 2) Oklahoma 3) Texas 4) Alabama 5) USC. Few would argue that these aren’t the top 5 football program’s in the nation. Auburn, Oregon, Washington, and Pitt all had surprisingly strong haul in 2010. Each of these programs are widely perceived to be on the way up.

Tennessee’s the lone school that can be pointed to with a strong class that: is not a contender, doesn’t have a wealth of talent in their backyard, and isn’t considered to be on the upswing.

Yet, somehow, ESPNU couldn’t go 10 minutes without mentioning the Vols, the WWL sent uber reporter Wendi Nix to Knoxville for signing day, and kids left their commitments to established programs to come to Knoxville with a probable losing season on the horizon.

But Tennessee has had one thing going for it that few 7-6 teams will ever have, exposure. Good or bad, Lane Kiffin’s mouth running brought a lot of attention to the Vols. With every baseless statement, false accusation, and ridiculous inference the Vols found themselves among the top stories on Sportscenter.

A strong argument could be made that Tennessee has received more coverage than BCS champ Alabama in the last 15 months.

Even Lane Kiffin’s departure from the university brought with it a large spotlight. ESPN News had non-stop reporting from Knoxville and Los Angeles on that fateful night. The immediate student reaction was even a national story.

The old adage about there being no such thing as bad publicity seems to apply. The Vols were in the news almost daily this past season, albeit mostly for negative reasons. Good, bad, or ugly, the exposure made Tennessee seem more relevant than it’s on-field play has in more than a decade. Lane Kiffin strenghtened the school’s brand. For how long? Who knows?