Putting some pieces together from a wild week of college football

We'll watch out for sparks as we connect some of the wires on a couple of hot-button football issues:

LANE KIFFIN

It's interesting to note that Lane Kiffin, announced Monday as the new coach at the University of Tennessee, was one of the top candidates for the University of Arkansas job last year when Houston Nutt resigned.

When Kiffin was fired earlier in the season as coach of the Oakland Raiders, he was projected to be one of the top candidates for some of the upper-level college jobs that would later open.

Kiffin is young. He doesn't have much of a college resume. Many in the University of Tennessee family, particularly those who dreamed of North Carolina's Butch Davis (unapproachable until after a bowl), a major risk. What happened to Kiffin under owner Al Davis shouldn't count. But there's still not a whole lot there to gauge.

Sometimes, the best case one has for a job is availability. Kiffin was immediately available and immediately could kick the recruiting and the public-relations machine in high gear.

To understand the Kiffin hire, you have to understand a little of Tennessee's current situation and what Vols' officials want. All of the dots have not been officially connected.

Tennessee, like Arkansas, does not normally produce enough high-level college football players to fill the demand at Knoxville. Tennessee's best teams have consisted of top players from surrounding states. That has become tougher with the rise of programs in surrounding states and high-profile coaches who attract high-profile talent such as Nick Saban at Alabama, Urban Meyer at Florida, Mark Richt at Georgia, Davis at North Carolina, Steve Spurrier at South Carolina and to some extent, Tommy Tuberville at Auburn.

The Tennessee people wanted an energetic, charismatic, young coach with a bright offensive mind. Kiffin fills that.

Now, Kiffin and UT officials intend to address the experience issue and other question marks by surrounding him with an all-star staff that can complement his perceived weaknesses.

Kiffin's father, Monte, is expected to join him as defensive coordinator. Monte Kiffin, who coordnated Tom Osborne's best defenses at Nebraska and Lou Holtz's best defenses at Arkansas before becoming one of the best coordinators in the NFL, is a Hall of Fame quality coach. He will also give UT a two-for-one head coaching effect with his vast experience in both college and the pros and his wealth of contacts.

David Reaves, Lane Kiffin's brother in law who has resigned as quarterback coach at South Carolina, is expected to join the UT staff and has the reputation of a strong recruiter. Possibly taking over as recruiting coordinator at UT is former Ole Miss head coach Ed Orgeron, whom Kiffin worked with at Southern Cal and is considered one of the best recruiters in the business.

When all is said and done, UT will likely end up with an energetic, young head coach with an innovative offensive mind, one of the best defensive coordinators in all of football and an all-staff staff of recruiting-minded coaches (a couple of coaches with USC/NFL connections may also join the staff).

Tennessee may not be down long. Kiffin may not be initially impressive to some, but the total package may be awesome and should open some intense battlelines along the East Division of the SEC.

BIG MESS IN BIG 12

By having to go to its fifth tiebreaker in determining a South Division champion, the Big 12 not only opened a can or worms but a bucket of snakes.

Head-to-head competition is usually the gold standard for breaking ties, whether in high school or college. For example, when there is an unresolvable tie in the SEC, it goes down who won head-to-head among the two top-ranked teams.

Oklahoma, Texas and Texas Tech all being highly ranked nationally and even in the same division of a conference creating a perfect triangle of victories among each other presented an unsolvable situation. You cannot make a completely irrefutable argument either way you go.

Oklahoma prevailed on style points with decisive and impressive late season victories over Texas Tech (No. 2 in the country at the time) and No. 12 Oklahoma State. Texas closed with decisive victories over Baylor and Texas A&M but those two teams didn't have enough "wow" points.

After its victory over Oklahoma, the Longhorns were really good. However, after their loss to Texas in October, the Sooners became a juggernaut. OU did a great job of enhancing the perception it was the best team among the three tied at season's end.

OU's Bob Stoops made the proper argument on his team's behalf for the Sooners jumping over Texas despite the head-to-head result: If you rank Texas over OU based on head-to-head, you have to rank Texas Tech over Texas by the same principle. The only glitch in that argument is that Texas' victory over OU was at a neutral site while Texas Tech won at home.

You just can't make a clear-cut argument for any decision.

So, it came down to November impressions from 65 coaches and 114 Harris Poll voters.

Isn't it interesting that even though Texas A&M was clobbered by their arch-rival Longhorns this year, the Aggies may have gotten the last laugh on UT by being so bad this year that they probably knocked the Longhorns out of the Big 12 title game because what would have normally been benchmark win didn't really mean much this year?

This year, there are seven one-loss teams from BCS conferences at season's end. That number could expand one if Florida defeats Alabama in the SEC title game.

As the number of 12-game seasons increases, the law of averages suggests the number of one-loss teams will grow.

A playoff system may be evolving naturally.

(Sports columnist David McCollum can be reached at 505-1235 or david.mccollum@thecabin.net)