Lane Kifin likes to have fun on Twitter. The current head coach of Florida Atlantic likes to dish out jokes about his former employers, and both Tennessee and Alabama have been the butts of his good-natured jabbing more than a few times online.
On Friday, Kiffin took another shot at Tennessee on social media. And this time, it was at the man he replaced as head coach at UT.
Former Tennessee head coach Johnny Majors is stopping by FAU for the weekend, and Kiffin tweeted out a photo of himself posing with Majors. In the tweet, Kiffin calls Majors “the greatest Tennessee coach ever” and then goes on to tag not only Majors’ Twitter account, but Phillip Fulmer’s Twitter handle as well. Fulmer was fired in 2008, and Kiffin was hired to replace him. The two haven’t had a great off-field relationship over the last decade, but that didn’t stop Kiffin from making a little joke at Fulmer’s expense.
So glad to have Coach Majors down for the weekend!!! Blessed to have the greatest Tennessee Coach ever with us for the game. Stand up guy big time!!!! @phillipfulmer ??@Coach_Majors @Vol_Football ? @coachbrucepearl I mean in football Bruce!! pic.twitter.com/gwGJuASzFm
— Lane Kiffin (@Lane_Kiffin) November 9, 2018
The plot thickens when you consider the history behind Majors and Fulmer, though. Fulmer served as the Vols’ interim head coach for the first three games of the 1992 season as Majors recovered from offseason surgery. Fulmer led the team to a 3-0 start before Majors came back in, but the team struggled under Majors and went 5-3 under his watch.
Majors resigned following the regular season, and controversy surrounded the situation. Many Vol fans believed at the time (and still do to this day) that Fulmer played it dirty behind the scenes and got Majors ousted as head coach so he could take over.
Whatever the case, Majors and Fulmer have infamously not had a great relationship over the last few decades. So for Kiffin, someone Fulmer already doesn’t like, to tag Fulmer in a tweet about Majors is certainly not just a basic troll.
Then there’s also the fact that Kiffin tagged former Tennessee head basketball coach Bruce Pearl.
Pearl was UT’s men’s basketball head coach from 2005 till 2011. Pearl was the head basketball coach for Kiffin’s one season as Tennessee’s head football coach in 2009, but Pearl was fired after the 2010-11 season amid an NCAA investigation into a BBQ he hosted and had improper contact with a recruit.
Kiffin loves to troll on Twitter, and he doesn’t care who his jokes are targeted towards. Vol fans have seen him joke around about the Vols on his Twitter account before, and he’ll probably do it again sometime in the future.
