Good meme. Well done.

I’ve long admired Lane Kiffin’s coaching career, from his days as an assistant at USC, to his head coaching gig with the Oakland Raiders, to his stint as the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers, and now his tenure as the coach of the USC Trojans. I don’t admire everything he’s done because he’s been great at it. No, I admire it because short of Cosmo Kramer, nobody has ever fallen ass backwards into fortune and success quite like this guy.

But this is about today, and barring any idiocy in his lavish recruiting style, Kiffin will probably be at USC for a long time, because 18-year old kids like living and playing in Southern California. And we can make fun of Kiffin all we want for being arrogant or for saying he wouldn’t vote his team No. 1 when he clearly did, but it’s not going to change the fact that the guy is who he is.

That’s why the Bane Kiffin meme is so perfect. The guy’s an unapologetic, brash menace that most likely won’t be stopped this season, and we love puns. So everything works out great. We hope that this new Tumblr parody continues throughout the season, and we celebrate it today with several of our favorites and a few of my own.

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"So I'd like to stay another year and nail many, many attractive college girls."

If USC quarterback Matt Barkley enters the 2012 NFL Draft, he is a Top 10 draft pick, without a doubt. Depending on whether or not the Cleveland Browns decide if they’re content with Colt McCoy instead of selecting one of three seemingly sure-fire NFL QBs, he could even be a Top 5 pick. Of course we also need to see how the Top 10 unfolds, with so many terrible teams still jostling for position, but in my cold, dark heart, I know he was going to be a Miami Dolphin.

And then he had to be a big ol’ jerk and stay at school for his senior year.

Matt showed Kiffin an ornament he had made for him that had Barkley and Kiffin embracing after the USC-Colorado game in November, in which Barkley set the school’s single-game touchdown passes record. Below the picture, it read, “2011 Great Memories.”

Kiffin looked at the ornament hastily made out of cardboard and said, “That’s neat. Cool ornament, Matt.”

Barkley then said, “Turn it over, Coach.”

Kiffin had to read the hand-written inscription twice for the words to sink in: “One more year. To the memories next year.”

(Via ESPN LA)

My overwhelming disappointment aside, this is a bold but understandable choice by Barkley. On one hand, he loses the substantial payday he was guaranteed as one of the three franchise QBs – the others being Robert Griffin III and that Stanford kid nobody talks about – taken in the first round, but he doesn’t necessarily seem like a guy who is too worried about waiting another year for that coin.

On the other hand, he can help guide the Trojans out of their humiliating suspension by making a National Title run next year, and if they look anything like they did this season, the Trojans will definitely be in the thick of it. And that stinks, because nobody wants to see Lane Kiffin win.

The Second Harvest Food Bank in Kingston, Tennessee has withdrawn from a fundraiser that is being sponsored by Frontier Firearms because the nonprofit’s leadership believes the theme is in poor taste. That theme? Shooting at Lane and Monte Kiffin bobbleheads. In the wake of the tragedy in Arizona, the Food Bank has backed out due to complaints from area residents, marking the second time in 17 years that the organization has refused a fundraiser, said Executive Director Elaine Streno.

Frontier is still moving forward with the event, charging $5 per bobblehead and the company will give the money to basically any charity that wants it. And as the ED of Burnsy’s Home for Wayward Hot Sorority Girls, I will gladly accept the money for my new Pudding Wrestling Scholarship.

Hold a grudge over a sh*tty coach for me, USA Today:

Frontier Firearms president Brant Williams says he has perhaps 800 bobbleheads of Lane and his father, USC defensive coordinator Monte, and the event will go on regardless of anyone cringing because it comes on the heels of the Arizona shootings.

Williams points out that YouTube is littered with comic explosions of celebrity bobbleheads and said by phone from his Kingston store that, “Nobody is going to leave our range after shooting a Lane Kiffin boobblehead [sic] with a desire to go shoot Lane Kiffin.”

I love that they spelled it “boobblehead” because the word boob makes me giggle endlessly. Williams added that this is just typical sports behavior and that fans have the ability to check their hatred at the door. In related news, people in Tennessee need to move on already.

Local news report about the fundraiser after the jump…

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