Lane Kiffin proves he still has not matured from his USC days

The biggest news of the weekend in college football was not any of the actual games being played, but rather, the soap opera surrounding Lane Kiffin. After several weeks of drama culminating in one of the wildest weekends in recent memory, it was finally announced on Sunday that Kiffin will be leaving Ole Miss before the team's College Football Playoff run to become the next head coach at conference rival LSU.

Of course, USC fans are quire familiar with Kiffin. After serving as an assistant on Pete Carroll's staff with the Trojans from 2001-2006, Kiffin was USC's head coach from 2010-2013, before his infamous firing on the airport tarmac.

Kiffin's USC tenure

When Kiffin was hired as the head coach at USC in January 2010, he was just 34 years old. His tenure as the head coach of the Trojans did feature some memorable victories. Most notably, his 2011 team upset No. 4 Oregon on the road and defeated crosstown rival UCLA 50-0 at the Coliseum.

However, Kiffin's time at USC featured far more lows than highs. Perhaps the breaking point was a 2012 season that saw the Trojans start the year as the preseason No. 1 team in the country, only to finish 7-6 with an ugly Sun Bowl loss to Georgia Tech.

Kiffin would later admit that he was not ready or mature enough at the time to be the head coach at USC, and that all of the hype surrounding him ultimately got into his head.

The tarmac incident

After two more embarrassing losses early in the 2013 season, Kiffin was fired just five games in. The manner in which it occurred caused quite a stir, though—after a blowout defeat at Arizona State, he was fired by athletic director Pat Haden on the tarmac at LAX at 3:00 AM. Obviously, the incident drew national headlines, and caused a great deal of embarrassment to all parties who were involved.

Of course, much of the embarrassment from the way that Kiffin was fired was directed at USC athletic director Pat Haden and president Max Nikias, who, to put it bluntly, ran a clown show of an athletic department. However, it takes a very specific coach to foster an environment where a firing like that one could even be possible, and Kiffin was the perfect candidate.

Learning from his mistakes

After getting fired by USC, Kiffin took a step back from the national spotlight for a bit. He spent three years as the offensive coordinator for Nick Saban at Alabama, winning three consecutive SEC titles and a national championship. He was then hired as the head coach at Florida Atlantic, where he led the Owls to two conference titles in three seasons.

It felt as though Kiffin was maturing, and that he was finally getting to learn how to be a head coach without the spotlight that comes along with being at a major program—an opportunity that most coaches are afforded, but Kiffin never was before taking the USC job. When a power conference school finally called, it seemed like Kiffin would be ready to approach that opportunity with a level of maturity that he did not have when he was with the Trojans.

A changed man . . . or so we thought

That opportunity came ahead of the 2020 season with Ole Miss. Over the next six years, Kiffin would lead the Rebels to their most successful stretch in school history. They won double-digit games four times, played in two New Year's Six Bowls, and are essentially a lock to make this year's College Football Playoff.

Sure, Kiffin might still have his Twitter antics, and the occasional cringeworthy quote. But the general consensus was that Kiffin truly had matured from his USC days, and he had finally learned how to be a head coach in major college football without creating a circus around himself.

Or at least, so we thought.

Still the same Lane

With the success that Kiffin was having at Ole Miss, it felt as though the majority of USC fans were truly happy for him. There was a general sense of understanding that the Trojans had hired him at the wrong time, and people were generally happy to watch him mature and succeed.

Well, at least we thoughtI that Kiffin was maturing. It turns out the Kiffin is not, in fact, a changed man, but rather the same immature coach that we saw at USC 15 years ago.

Even at age 50, he continues to make the spotlight about himself, at the detriment of his team. We saw it numerous times at USC. And now, we saw it again, as Kiffin managed to turned the most successful season in the history of Ole Miss football into a drama about himself and ruin all of the goodwill that he built up there over six years in just a few weeks.

No turning back now

Kiffin's antics during the earlier part of his coaching career could easily be chalked up to the fact that he was young, immature, and not ready for the spotlight. But at age 50, he no longer has that excuse. At this point, this is just who Kiffin is, and who he will ultimately be remembered as.

As numerous writers have said over the years, "You can only be young once, but you can be immature forever." Well, it appears as though Lane Kiffin took that advice to heart.

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Lane Kiffin still has not matured since getting fired by USC football