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Does it look as good in the light of day?

For those few in the Volunteer state who still wish good things for new USC coach Lane Kiffin, they certainly hope so.

What a night for Kiffin. His dream job popped up on his door step and he snatched it up but that career long moment of ultimate achievement went askew and somehow just kept twisting and spiralling down into an awkward and continually infuriating nightmare.

First word leaked out too soon. Then an overly enthused assistant let ego outpace his head as he called players mere hours from their first class at UT as early enrollees in an attempt to entice them to join the USC bandwagon headed west. Forgetting they were sitting in a team meeting still awaiting words from Kiffin as to why he was walking out on the dream he'd already sold. That they were surrounded by players who had already bought into and sacrificed for that dream.

An awkward moment went bad to worse and then worse still. Perhaps frazzled all the polish came off in the debate over addressing the cameras in what was in essence a 45-second snub to the Volunteer Nation that destroyed all that had been built before as surely as if the dam had broken and scoured the Knoxville river banks.

Then there was the students. Who could have foreseen their reaction? It must have been a total Frankenstein-moment seeing them surrounding the complex parking lot in anger and hurt rather than joy. Shirts and pictures and even a poor helpless mattress burned in fury at the sense of betrayal. The Rock covered in vile slurs where days ago had proclaimed support and adoration, even in defeat.

California must seem a sunny relief after that kind of night.

But will it be?

Really?

In this morning's light has it set in what awaits. This isn't a program struggling to regain its form, ready to support and endure. USC is where the Rose Bowl is a dissapointment when the BCS championship game is somewhere else.

This isn't a BCS ring holder forced out for short comings, this is one going back to the NFL for accomplishments.

There's no free hand of fan support, but the quiet question of, 'this is who we got?'

And the arrogant quips and free-wheeling ways that won favor from the faithful as it irritated the opposition just won't ring as true now. Not to mention that no mother, no father and certainly no young man are going to look in those eyes and believe those promises of a championship dream whole-heartedly as those that did the last 13 months.

That was the price of admission to be The Man at USC .

Every critic who called out that swagger as bluff crows this morning. Every coach you snubbed and who has recruited the same student has a chuckle this morning, not just at UT's plight but at a coach's fall from grace. Nick Saban, Doug Dickey, those guys were amateurs in the now-you-see-me-now-you-don't game.

Does it look better or worse to be a UT fan this morning than it did last night? Will it look a little better tomorrow? Maybe next month? Maybe in the fall?

How does this morning look as a UT player?

They thought they worked and struggled and battled for someone who had their back and so they had his. They thought they learned life lessons. That there is a right way and wrong way to act and carry yourself. They thought they learned that on the practice field, in the locker room and in Neyland this past season.

Instead they, and all of Big Orange Country, got a whole new indoctrination in the difference between style and substance.

Marcus Fitzsimmons is a sportswriter for The Daily Times, who enjoys wise cracks and snide remarks posted to this column's comment page.