We should have seen this coming on Monday. Right about the time then-Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin said "no comment" about the Southern Cal job.
A man wrapping up his first year as head coach at a tradition-rich school paying him $2 million a season shouldn't say "no comment" about any other college job. Mostly because he shouldn't be in line for one after a 7-6 season that ended in a 23-point bowl loss.
But Kiffin -- as we have often learned these past 14 months -- isn't your normal coach, be it good or bad.
The good Kiffin signed the No. 1 running back in the country not four months on the job. The bad Kiffin falsely accused the hottest coach in college football of cheating barely two months on the job.
The good Kiffin gave eventual national champ Alabama its closest scare of the season. The bad Kiffin leaves UT with a few public relations scars, most recently Hostess-gate, which is reportedly under investigation by the NCAA.
The good Kiffin inspired more than 55,000 Volniacs to show up for the spring game. The bad Kiffin watched a recruit he liked to brag he stole from Florida kicked off the Big Orange for attempted armed robbery.
Finally, the good Kiffin put Tennessee's brand -- as he was so fond of calling it -- on the lips of almost every college football fan, media person and potential recruit for the first time in almost a decade.
Unfortunately, the bad Kiffin has pretty much undone all that good work by skipping town to coach the Trojans.
But to blame Kiffin and not hammer UT athletic director Mike Hamilton would be equally wrong. Hamilton was right to be impressed with Kiffin's energy, his recruiting prowess, his ability to attract a staff that included his father Monte and recruiting maestro Ed Orgeron.
But this was the same Kiffin who was criticized by more than one of his former Oakland Raiders players for dishonesty. "He needs to learn to tell the truth," they've said for publication, including to this newspaper.
But Hamilton couldn't resist the notion that he could reinvent the wheel by winning a national championship thanks to a staff rather than a head coach. Kiffin himself might not be ready for Rocky Top, but the highest paid staff in the game could surely win it all.
And maybe it would have worked. Instead, Kiffin brought almost as much embarrassment to the Vols as victories, and his swift, shocking departure leaves Hamilton to start over from scratch three weeks from signing day. Yikes.
You can't blame USC, of course. First, officials there know Kiffin as well as anyone can, given his previous six seasons there as an assistant for Pete Carroll.
Second, if you believe the early rumors, they were running out of options. Jacksonville Jaguars coach and former Trojans great Jack Del Rio chose to remain with the Jags. Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher, another ex-Trojan, never got involved. Washington coach Steve Sarkisian -- an assistant for Carroll when Kiffin was there -- also hesitated, as did Oregon State coach Mike Riley.
At this rate, USC was about to have to find a get-out-of-jail-free card for its disgraced 1968 Heisman Trphy winner O.J. Simpson if it was determined to keep it in the family.
But there are clearly advantages to Kiffin beyond the fact he's coached there previously.
For one, he's become more familiar than he might have liked with NCAA dos and don'ts. That should quickly come in handy since all signs point to the Trojans going on probation, both for the house that 2005 Heisman winner Reggie Bush's parents lived in while he was at USC and the Land Rover reportedly driven by current Trojan Joe McKnight, among other things.
In fact, Kiffin could even gain some favor with the NCAA by no longer forcing college athletics' governing body to split time between Kiffin's secondary violations and the Trojans' primary ones. Their gumshoes can now spend all their time in L.A.
Then there's his wife, Layla, who looks as if she stepped off a Hollywood movie set.
And baby Knox, whom the Kiffins apparently named for their new East Tennessee home? In later years Kiffin can always say he named the boy after former L.A. Rams coach Chuck Knox.
Late Tuesday evening, Kiffin closed out his first 14 months as a college head coach by telling the state's media, "I really believe the only place I would have left here to go to was ... Southern Cal."
Hamilton needs to make sure the Vols' next hire won't leave for any other school unless the AD shows him the door.