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“But while Nu’Keese was here on campus, his phone kept ringing. So one of our coaches said, ‘Who’s that?’ And he looks at the phone and said, ‘Urban Meyer.’ Just so you know, when a recruit’s on another campus, you can’t call a recruit on another campus. But I love the fact that Urban had to cheat and still didn’t get him.”
    The Tennessee boosters roared with laughter.
    But Florida’s athletic director, Jeremy Foley, was livid and demanded an apology. The SEC’s commissioner, Mike Slive, not a man to be trifled with, didn’t appreciate Kiffin’s brash accusation either. Within hours Slive issued a public statement reprimanding Kiffin.
    “Coach Kiffin has violated the Southeastern Conference code of ethics,” Slive said. The bylaw “clearly states that coaches and administrators shall refrain from directed public criticism of other member institutions, their staffs or players … The phone call to which Coach Kiffin referred to in his public comments is not a violation of SEC or NCAA rules. We expect our coaches to have an understanding and knowledge of conference and NCAA rules.”
    Kiffin ended up apologizing less than twelve hours after accusing Meyer. But the Kiffin–Meyer flap made headlines for days, diverting attention from a much bigger recruiting battle that Kiffin was waging behind the scenes. The No. 1 recruit in the country at that time was running back Bryce Brown, a high school senior out of Wichita, Kansas. Virtually every recruiting service rated him as the best high school football player in America. As a junior, Brown had verbally committed to the University of Miami. It was believed to be a foregone conclusion that he would sign his letter of intent, officially committing to the Hurricanes, on National Signing Day. But at the last minute, Brown announced he would delay signing untilMarch 16, 2009. He also announced five new finalists in addition to Miami: LSU, Oregon, USC, Kansas State and Tennessee.
    Brown’s official visit to Tennessee took place on Valentine’s Day and Kiffin asked Lacey Earps to be Brown’s escort. “I was flattered,” Earps said. “Official visits were the ultimate goal in Orange Pride. And Bryce was the No. 1 recruit in the country.”
    Earps was twenty-one at the time. Brown was seventeen. That weekend, she took him to a Tennessee men’s basketball game against Vanderbilt. Afterward, they went to see the action movie
Taken
. Then Earps took him out for ice cream. They were together virtually the entire weekend.
    The moment Brown returned home to Wichita, he and Earps started communicating daily during the period leading up to his decision day in mid-March. “I kept in contact with him the whole time,” Earps said. “We Skyped. We texted a lot. We talked on the phone. Talked on Facebook.”
    One night Earps even stayed up until 4:00 a.m. Skyping with Brown. “We didn’t have a relationship, but we were getting close,” Earps said. “Actually, as I was recruiting him, maybe I did lead him on a little bit. Bryce wanted me to be single. It was more attractive to the guys if you are single.”
    In the vernacular of recruiting, “single” means a hostess isn’t in a relationship with another player. The prospect of a long-term relationship with a hostess can be a powerful lure, one that hostesses are eager to perpetuate.
    Brown notified Kiffin that he planned to return to Knoxville on March 13 for a follow-up visit, just three days before announcing his choice. Determined to close the deal with Brown while he was in Knoxville, Kiffin approached Earps and asked if he could speak with her. First he informed her that Brown was coming back to campus—a fact she knew before he did. Then Kiffin asked Earps for some help.
    “I asked him what he wanted to do,” Kiffin told Earps. “He said, ‘Coach, all I want to do is hang out with Lacey.’ So will you take him out?”
    Earps agreed.
    Then Kiffin gave her some money.
    “I went into his office,