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Vols' Kiffin takes first jab from Spurrier

Gamecocks questioned if new Tennessee coach broke recruiting rule

Image: Spurrier
Doug Benc / Getty Images file
South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier didn't waste any time going after his new SEC peer Lane Kiffin.
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updated 2:28 p.m. ET Dec. 2, 2008

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Lane Kiffin has already discovered one thing that comes with the job of being Tennessee's coach: needling from Steve Spurrier.

The South Carolina coach, who had a history of taking verbal jabs at Kiffin's predecessor, Phillip Fulmer, questioned whether Kiffin broke NCAA recruiting rules by contacting Tennessee recruits before he was cleared to do so.

The NCAA requires coaches to take a recruiting certification test before they're allowed to contact recruits.

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Jarvis Giles, a running back recruit from Gaither High School in Tampa, Fla., told several media outlets that Kiffin contacted him early Sunday morning - a day before he was scheduled to be introduced as the Vols' new coach.

Spurrier noted that he didn't retake the recruiting test until after he was introduced as the Gamecocks' new coach and joked that Kiffin might have called Giles as "an interested observer.''

Kiffin, who announced Monday he had hired South Carolina's former quarterbacks coach and recruiting coordinator David Reaves, his brother-in-law, to help with recruiting, must have heard what Spurrier had to say.

"As far as recruiting, we've hit the ground running. I took the test a few days before I got hired here so that we could do that,'' he said Monday at his introductory news conference.

© 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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