As long as we're clear here

Let me get this straight.

USC is facing possible NCAA sanctions — possibly severe — for violations in its basketball and football programs. So it hires Lane Kiffin to be its new football coach — the same Lane Kiffin whose program in one year at Tennessee was cited for six rules violations and is under investigation for its use of student hostesses in recruiting?

OK then. Just as long as we're clear.

Kiffin, 1st ad

Lane Kiffin has done some classless things in his young and so-far unproductive coaching career, but nothing more distasteful than having his staff — on its way to the left coast — contact Tennessee recruits to suggest they may not want to show up for their first day of classes this week but instead consider coming with them to Southern California.

Who do you trust? How about ... neither?

A favorite sound byte on the radio show of late, great Jim Healy was a quote of Ed Garvey, the onetime head of the NFL players union, on the troubled then-owner of the Philadelphia Eagles.

“Leonard Tose,” Garvey said, “has lost it.”

I thought of Healy and Garvey and Tose while watching a tape of Al Davis railing this week against the alleged sins of Oakland Raiders coach Lane Kiffin, whose firing Davis announced at a news conference that was bizarre even by Raider standards.

After eviscerating Kiffin for alleged coaching and character flaws, a rambling Davis went on to claim that New England coach Bill Belichick tampered with Raiders receiver Randy Moss before trading for him before the 2007 season. Belichick denied the claim.

A quandary — who is one to believe here? Belichick is a proven cheat. And Davis? Well, he’s gone the Leonard Tose route.