KIFFIN SEEMS TO HAVE REGRETS

With the Buccaneers ending the season by losing four straight games and speculation centering on a defensive meltdown resulting from the announcement by defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin that he’d be leaving the team at the end of the year, Kiffin apparently has some regrets regarding his decision to opt for candor. “I did think back to Mike Holmgren in Seattle,” Kiffin said Monday, per our friends at Pewter Report. “I said to myself when Mike announced this was his last year, because Mike is a heck of a football coach and I’ve got a lot of respect for him. You think back and maybe he shouldn’t have announced that at the time. I didn’t know. Like I said, I would have liked to have had my choice, but there was so much speculation I tried to put it to rest In the same sense, I don’t know if it was the right thing to do or not. I really don’t. That’s hard to look back at that.” So, basically, Kiffin is saying that maybe Nick Saban had it right. And maybe, in hindsight, Saban did. Maybe the best way to prevent a potential distraction for a coach’s current team from becoming a complete and total distraction is to conceal the truth. Even if it means telling an out-and-out lie. Kiffin, who has been working for the Bucs since 1996, will be joining his son, Lane, at the Univeristy of Tennessee.