Lane Kiffin says terrible recruiting video was a "trick"

Feb. 2 (UPI) -- Is Lane Kiffin a genius, or was his recent "hype" video for FAU as terrible as it looked and sounded?

The Florida Atlantic football coach is claiming the latter and he could be right. Kiffin had social media cracking up at his recruiting pitch video, which was posted the weekend prior to Wednesday's National Signing Day. In the video, Kiffin introduces himself to "Owl Nation" while squinting into the sunlight and speaking with a monotone voice.

"What an exciting time," Kiffin says in the video, with the excitement of a student taking final exams. "Next week is National Signing Day." The video also features terrible editing between scenes and a cheesy soundtrack.

Kiffin told the Palm Beach Post Wednesday that the video was intended to bring attention to the program.

"That was a trick," Kiffin told the Post. "We did it so bad because we knew we would get so much attention. That was actually on purpose."

Kiffin, who left his offensive coordinator position with Alabama before the national championship, signed 24 players for his first class.

The Owls inked 14 players from out of state. Some experts rank the Owls as the best recruiting class in Conference USA.

"It was a very exciting day for us," Kiffin said in a release. "A lot went into this. And, it was an unusual set of circumstances, getting hired late, Alabama, trying to get the best staff we could. Actually, we didn't finalize our staff until this last week. These guys worked extremely hard...I'm proud of our coaches. I'm proud of how hard they worked and we had a lot of support. Support by the people that were here in place who enabled us to do this...a lot of people say we have the No. 1 class in the Conference [C-USA]. We aren't concerned by that. We are more concerned that we brought a lot of really special players here. We feel like at this point they can really help us and contribute to winning and building a championship program. Twenty-four guys so far and we are still working on this by adding one or two guys if we possibly can."

FAU has since deleted Kiffin's hype video from its Twitter feed, but it was immortalized by other Twitter and YouTube users. The Owls battle Navy in its first game this season on Sept. 2 in Boca Raton. Kiffin was officially hired in December.