A penny for your thoughts? Coach Kiffin jokes about $25k fine imposed by SEC for a Retweet
OXFORD, Miss. — You could say Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin was asked a “penny for his thoughts” on Wednesday’s SEC Football Coaches weekly teleconference.
Kiffin was recently fined $25,000 by the Southeastern Conference — not for anything he said, but for a retweet he made on Twitter after the Rebels lost to Auburn Saturday, in part because of an improperly officiated call.
On the play in question, the Rebels kicked off to the Tigers and the ball clearly seemed to touch Shaun Shivers, Auburn return man, before bouncing into the end zone and ultimately being fallen on by the Rebels’ Tylan Knight.
Wednesday, Coach Kiffin said he did not expect to be fined by the SEC for the retweet (below), as he was simply retweeting the post because it contained a good video replay of the kickoff in question.
Y'all are a disgrace @SEC your officiating is absolutely atrocious. @SECOfficiating
If y'all want to just keep gifting Auburn wins, just say it. pic.twitter.com/LJ01avk5ZI
— Breck Jones (@BreckJones_) October 24, 2020
“Yeah, I was very surprised,” Kiffin said on the weekly coaches’ teleconference. “It was not for [saying he wished he could share the call from SEC officiating head John McDaid]. It was for the retweet where a fan said something about the officials. I retweeted, I did not think that was fineable,” he explained.
“It’d be one thing if I tweeted something and wrote something on it. So I was surprised when the commissioner called and told me. It was after I’d already spoken to the media, thought that I’d handled a very frustrating situation, getting told by them one minute by the league and John McDaid, this is what happened and they’re apologetic for it. You guys don’t get that explanation. Our fans don’t. It’s very frustrating for me.”
Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin
On Tuesday, Kiffin joked on Twitter that the fine would come from the college fund for his son, Knox.
He said he’s worried college fund is gone @OleMissFB @SEC pic.twitter.com/AEUwtxNudQ
— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) October 27, 2020
Kiffin was asked if he could appeal the fine; however, he did not seem to think that was very likely to be successful.
“I do not know that. I think that was asked and someone said they’ve got a policy pretty blanketed that basically the commissioner can do whatever he wants,” Kiffin said. “So it doesn’t sound like it.”
When Commissioner Greg Sankey called to tell Kiffin about the fine, the head coach says he told the league boss that he didn’t really think he had gotten his money’s worth out of the fine — since he merely retweeted someone else’s tweet.
“I did say to him, when he said he was fining me, I said, ‘Well, that’s not real exciting that I didn’t even get to say anything or make a joke,.’ I just got fined for a retweet; that’s not really worth it.”
Coach Kiffin on being fined for a retweet
Not his first time
Coach Kiffin also indicated in his weekly Wednesday Zoom presser with local media this wasn’t his first fine for something on twitter, as he once tweeted some blind referees while he was a coach in Conference USA. He also said the fine was “a lot less” than $25,000.
Kiffin on being fined before: "I RT the blind refs with the seeing dogs (in Conf. USA), and thought I was okay, but I guess I was not." Kiffin said the Conf. USA fine was a lot less than this one.
— The Rebel Walk (@TheRebelWalk) October 28, 2020
Though Kiffin joked on twitter about hand-delivering the fine to Birmingham to the league headquarters, he said that probably won’t be happening.
— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) October 27, 2020
“Someone sent me the penny thing and I thought that was kind of funny,” Kiffin said of paying the $25,000 fine with 2.5 million pennies.
“Maybe that makes the fine more worth it, I guess, if it makes some people laugh. Plus I feel like that would be a long way to have to wheel a lot of pennies. You’d have to wheel them all the way to Birmingham. In the state of Alabama.”
Never “change,” Coach.
Hotty Toddy!
Evelyn Van Pelt
Evelyn has covered sports for over two decades, beginning her journalism career as a sports writer for a newspaper in Austin, Texas. She attended Texas A&M and majored in English. Evelyn's love for Ole Miss began when her daughter Katie attended the university on a volleyball scholarship. Evelyn created the Rebel Walk in 2013 and has served as publisher and managing editor since its inception.
