Kiffin Claims I-95 for Tennessee

"It's time...." to declare open season on high school boys

By JANIE CAMPBELL

Updated 11:10 AM EDT, Wed, Aug 5, 2009

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Dear young, slippery boys of South Florida: It is time.

So says a new billboard erected at I-95 and Oakland Park Boulevard, the very large and loud wooden embodiment of large and loud Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin's obsession with South Florida (The Pahokee mess seems like only yesterday, sniff!).

Oh, yes, Kiffin has quite the hankering for Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties' football prospects, who actually do grow on trees and populate approximately 98% of college football.

He has to, really.

"It is so hard to recruit in this conference," Kiffykins said at SEC Media Days. "Kids do not want to leave their own state. You've got to do something really unique and special to get them to come to your state. In Tennessee, as much as we love our state, we do not have a lot of great high school players there. Those are the facts.

"We have to create national attention immediately."

Well, he'll get it, with a billboard declaring "IT'S TIME" and featuring Kiffin and his marquee safety Eric Berry -- who we half-expect to stop mid-game, rip off his Eric Berry suit, and reveal himself to be a Miami Hurricane, circa 2000 -- staring down drivers with the intensity of half-naked players on a creamsicle orange Lambo.

Dear boys, we have cars and candy.
MMMM.....candy!

(God bless the UT marketing department, who are truly making our summer.)

But it begs the question: what would it be like if Miami reciprocated? If Kiffin can pose Tennessee as if it's the New Old Miami, then we'd like to see Randy Shannon fill needs by posturing Miami as the new Tennessee: clutching an apple pie and shotgun, glaring out over a lonely Tennessee highway, and with the message: "IT'S TIME...to send us your chicken-fried linemen."

After all, it is so hard to grow fat people properly in this sandy soil. Those are the facts.

Janie Campbell thinks Lane Kiffin's arrival might be the best thing that happened in college football last season, if only for the madcap laughs. Her work has appeared in irreverent sports sites around the Internet.