University of Mississippi Head Coach Lane Kiffin probably never thought a retweet would end up costing him as much as a new car. Following Saturday’s game between Auburn and Ole Miss, Kiffin retweeted a post which called SEC officiating a disgrace.
The tweet was prompted by a play late in Saturday’s 35-28 loss to Auburn. Following an Ole Miss touchdown with the Rebels leading 28-27, Auburn returner Shaun Shivers made an attempt to field a kick before it eventually rolled into the end zone. Ole Miss clearly recovered the ball in the endzone, as they believed Shivers had made contact with the ball. Officials, however, called it a touchback and Auburn’s ball. The issue came down to whether Shivers had made contact with the ball. If contact was made, then Ole Miss should have been awarded a touchdown for recovering the live ball in the end zone.
Following the play, Kiffin said he asked a line judge about a review and was told they had already looked at it and there was nothing there. Rebel fans on social media, however, found plenty of evidence in their reviews of the play, and Kiffin retweeted one of those messages that included a slow-motion video of the play and a message to SEC officiating.
The message that Kiffin retweeted from Breck Jones said, “Y’all are a disgrace @SEC your officiating is absolutely atrocious. @SECOfficiating If y’all want to just keep gifting Auburn wins, just say it.” The message was accompanied by a video of the Auburn player touching the football as it bounced past him.
On Monday the SEC admitted they should have reviewed the play further; they also fined Kiffin $25,000 for his retweet.
Kiffin took the fine in stride and returned to Twitter to joke about it as he posted a video of someone paying a bill with 3,000 pennies. He asked, “Where can I find 25,000 pennies?” Kiffin then followed with a subsequent tweet, saying, “Was just checking to see if @SEC would review my math to get it right this time??? After further review it’s 2.5 million pennies. Thanks for stopping to get it right.”
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