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BOCA RATON, Fla. — Lane Kiffin went out and spoke to some colleagues earlier this week.
They weren’t football coaches.
Kiffin’s first training camp as coach at Florida Atlantic opens Thursday, and ordinarily at this time of year he’d be swamped by writing practice scripts and locked in meeting rooms getting ready to tweak his offense. At FAU, for his fourth stint as a head coach, Kiffin is back in more of a CEO capacity — one where he will incorporate some things he learned while watching Nick Saban work at Alabama over the last three years.
So that’s why, when he was asked to go speak to CEOs at a networking event in South Florida this week, Kiffin felt perfectly comfortable in that element. He made jokes, told stories, showed off his smarts — and most of the questions had nothing to do with football.
“That’s the stuff I didn’t have the chance do before,” Kiffin said. “I probably would have said no to doing it in the past. Now I can do those things.”
The well-traveled lightning rod of a coach is taking over an FAU team that went 3-9 in each of the last three seasons. This time a year ago, Kiffin was the offensive coordinator at Alabama and dealing with perennial national-title expectations. He’s now at a school that hasn’t played in a bowl game since 2008 and where empty seats almost always outnumber filled ones on game day, often by a significant margin.
He is starting anew. So are the Owls, officially doing so when practice No. 1 of the fall begins at 9 a.m. Thursday.
“Anytime you bring anyone new in, it’s always a breath of fresh air,” FAU offensive lineman Antonyo Woods said. “Whatever you did in the past really doesn’t matter. You get to rewrite your own history once again.”
Outcry grows over V-Tech plan to honor Vick
BLACKSBURG, Va. — Public opposition is growing against the planned induction of former football star Michael Vick into the Virginia Tech Sports Hall of Fame.
The Roanoke Times reported Tuesday that two online petitions at change.org had received more than 90,000 combined signatures against the September induction. The Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine has also announced its opposition.
The university in Blacksburg has continued to defend its recent decision, noting that some believe Vick is the greatest athlete in school history.
Vick served 19 months in federal prison on 2007 dogfighting convictions. He was a top contender for the 1999 Heisman Trophy after leading the Hokies through an undefeated regular season and to a spot in the national championship game. He went on to play professionally for the Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles.
Pac-12 to make big changes
LOS ANGELES — The Pac-12 will shorten halftime and reduce the number of commercial breaks during its non-conference schedule this season as part of a trial program to reduce the length of its football games.
Halftime will be 15 minutes long, cut down from the usual 20-minute break. The number of commercial breaks will be reduced and they will be shorter in length, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said Wednesday.
Scott announced the initiative as the Pac-12 kicked off its media days in Hollywood. The experiment is intended to reduce ballooning game times in an era of up-tempo offenses running more plays and the increased scoring that comes with it.
Scott did not completely dismiss potential rule changes in the future to address the length of games.
Charity founded by Freeze mulls future
OXFORD, Miss. — A charity founded by former Mississippi coach Hugh Freeze is taking a break from fundraising and will reconsider its future after the coach resigned amid what the school called a “pattern of personal misconduct.”
The Freeze Foundation’s stated mission is to “express God’s love by improving the quality of life for orphans and needy children.”
Executive director Alice Blackmon tells USA Today that the charity will honor its financial pledges. She says it has paused its fundraising efforts and will reassess its future at the end of the year. USA Today reports that tax forms show the charity donated a total of $125,000 to two Christian organizations in 2015, its first full year.
Freeze resigned from Ole Miss last week after it was revealed that his school-issued cellphone dialed an escort service in 2016.