In his first ten-plus months in Knoxville, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of subjects Lane Kiffin won’t flap his gums about. Especially if it involves his Gainesville BFF. Or SEC officials.
However, there’s one thing that is verboten as far as the Tennessee coach is concerned -- speaking publicly about suspended players.
That zip-lipped approach was in full force this afternoon as Kiffin refused to address the status of Janzen Jackson. The freshman and reigning SEC frosh of the week has started the last seven games, but was, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel, watching practice from a distance this afternoon with no apparent injury.
Further buttressing the fact that Jackson may be a healthy scratch, Prentiss Waggner and Darren Myles Jr. were splitting the previous starter’s reps with the first-team defense.
Still, in face of all the empirical evidence, Kiffin wasn’t biting when pressed on any kind of suspension issue surrounding the frosh.
“I don’t talk about guys being suspended during the week,” Kiffin said. “So just like if it’s happened before and it’s happened again, I’ll address it after the game.”
In other words, we’ll find out on Sunday or Monday that Jackson was held out of the game for violating unnamed team rules.
See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?