DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – "How can you fire a shot across the bow when the other guy has been in the same boat?"
 
That's me, trying to be profound.
 
This was going to be an epic Lane Kiffin takedown column. In fact, the MOTHER of all Lane Kiffin takedown columns.
 
Why?
 
It's a college football column! It's what college football columns do, especially these online youngsters cranking it out for peanuts, pennies and pizzas. Kiffin's a high-profile target, which actually makes it easy to spew out some fake gridiron genius with a couple of pop cultural references and tired clichés thrown for good measure in a piece that accomplishes the ultimate these days – page views and user interaction.
 
Mine of course, would have elevated. Could've started off by sprinkling some anecdotes about Howard Schnellenberger, Allen Suber and Rashean Mathis and the 2001-2003 series. Would have segued into a stream of thoughts about how today's coaches aren't the revered typed anymore, and referenced the greats such as Bobby Bowden, Steve Spurrier, Danny Ford, Vince Dooley, Tom Osbourne, Barry Switzer, Lavell Edwards, Woody Hayes (before that Gator Bowl player punch), just to name a few. Then, since this an HBCU college football column, one would be remised not to have these greats: Bunky Matthews, Cy McClairen, John Merritt, Jake Gaither and, finally, using a pause to invite the required amount of respect…Eddie Robinson.
 
It would have been my Mona Lisa. My Sistine Chapel. My Eiffel Tower. My Rachmaninoff's Third. My Purple Rain. My Freebird. My Jungeland. It would have gotten that link from Richard Deitsch's Sports Illustrated media column that's one of the few remaining unaccomplished goals of my checkered career, an invite to go on a Hot Take show and shout for five minutes, a couple of unremarkable tweets that sets off an unnecessary, unproductive national cluster storm and maybe Larry Steele would have finally given that one hour weekly show on WELE 1380 The Cat that would allow me to be just like all the other daily hosts in that I would be delivering one hour of quality radio per week.
 
Yes, it would have been glorious.
 
It's not going to happen.
 
I can't do it. Sorry, not sorry.
 
Why?
 
Maybe because I've been embedded with the EOC (Emergency Operations Command) on campus all week, and those fine folks left me with a sense of perspective. Maybe it's because at 2 a.m. Sunday, I was perilously close to being like Lt. Dan in the Forrest Gump hurricane scene and was preparing to accept the worst, even though there's so much to live for – including being the publicist for Emily Williams, Ashanti Hunt and the rest of Vanessa Blair-Lewis' two-time defending Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) regular season champions. (Hope they appreciate the plug.)
 
The bottom line is that 98 percent of my body and soul was shrieking that a Lane Kiffin takedown column at this time would be a colossal jerk move. Of course, the remaining two percent held out and sought advice from a 30-year colleague who is a noted college football columnist/talk show host.
 
"You have to rip Lane Kiffin!!! It's college football!" he screamed.
 
There was the answer.
 
Coach Kiffin, if you read this, I look forward to greeting you in Christian and football fellowship Saturday night when my Bethune-Cookman Wildcats meet your Florida Atlantic Owls.
 
(Of all the places I end up at that gives me a chance to practice column writing, it has to be a Faith-based institution where the Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics is also our quasi-spiritual leader. I'm eternally grateful, but sometime he kills my fun! At Deadspin, you can cuss.)
 
So, I asked Vice President Thompson to help me out with a scripture. Let's go to 1st Thessalonians 5. That's right, we're dropping New Testament on you.
 
BOOM!
 
Verses 25-26: Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss. (Today, that's a fist bump).
 
Okay. Bad puns about hurricane forecasting aside, let's just say Kiffin's career path has had…an interesting trajectory. So what? As awesome as college football is on game day, it's also a bloated, convoluted, soul-sucking BUSINESS most of the time. EVERYONE gets fired. Kiffin just has one of the best ever stories with that LAX incident.
 
At this time, Kiffin's trajectory put him right alongside us, maybe even in the same boat.
 
We're all very proud and thankful for what Terry Sims and his staff did for our football team – both and off the field, the past week in Louisiana. Our gratitude goes out to Southern Head Coach Dawson Odums for his hospitality.
 
While we were going though that, so too were Kiffin and the Owls, except it was in Wisconsin after a respectable showing against the Badgers. Wisconsin opened its facilities and FAU stayed there until late this week.
 
Both Sims and Kiffin, and remember, this is his first season at FAU – had to be leaders of young men and reassure them, despite some serious concerns more important  than linemen being able to pick up a weak side blitz. "Is my family all right?" "Are we going to have a campus to go back to?" "Are we going to have a state to go back to?"
 
Not exactly scheming against Ole Miss or Washington, or trying to keep the Raiders competitive, but a lot more important.
 
Fortunately, all the answers turned out well. There's going to be a football game Saturday night. Back to normal, right? Yeah. FAU's a little higher on the college football chain, but it's all the same chain.
 
"At the end of the day, we really are on the same team as citizens of this great state and nation," Thompson said. "We're believers in God and the potential of our young people."
 
So, on Saturday night in Boca Raton, I first and foremost will be there hoping my friend Terry Sims does what he's supposed to do – win this football game against an experienced and renowned coach like Lane Kiffin. But I also hope to greet Coach Kiffin with a fist bump. It'll be interesting to compare notes on this boat we've been in the past week, particularly as we both were rocked back and forth, tossed and turned in the same storm.