LOS ANGELES — Wisps of gray have sprouted up in Southern California Coach Lane Kiffin’s sandy blond hair, a physical sign of maturity. Kiffin has matured in others ways as well, as he has distanced himself from the image he fashioned at Tennessee, where he was seen as antagonistic and bombastic.

Kiffin enters his third year as Southern California’s coach with a team expected to be ranked No. 1, a Heisman Trophy front-runner in Matt Barkley and perhaps the best chance to break the Southeastern Conference’s stranglehold on the national championship. He has done so with fewer verbal outbursts, recruiting squabbles and inflammatory sound bites.

But Tuesday, Kiffin flashed a flicker of his old ways. He offered to counsel Penn State Coach Bill O’Brien on how to handle N.C.A.A. sanctions while simultaneously angling to poach Penn State’s star running back, Silas Redd.

“Sure, yeah,” Kiffin said when asked if he would advise O’Brien on his scholarship losses and four-year postseason ban because of the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal. “I wish there had been someone for me to do that with. There really wasn’t.”