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Nick Saban’s Advice To Lane Kiffin On His Return To Tennessee

By Patrick Schmidt

Oct 4, 2014; Oxford, MS, USA; Alabama Crimson offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin talks with quarterback Blake Sims (6) as head coach Nick Saban looks on during the second half against Mississippi Rebels at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 4, 2014; Oxford, MS, USA; Alabama Crimson offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin talks with quarterback Blake Sims (6) as head coach Nick Saban looks on during the second half against Mississippi Rebels at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports /
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Lane Kiffin makes his return to Tennessee where he coached the Vols for one season as the offensive coordinator of Alabama and Nick Saban has some advice for him

The game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and Tennessee Volunteers on the third Saturday in October has a very interesting subplot this time as former Tennessee head coach and public enemy No. 1 in Knoxville, Lane Kiffin, returns to Rocky Top as the offensive coordinator of Alabama and he should be prepared for an inhospitable welcoming.

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Kiffin went 7-6 in his lone season at Tennessee before he left to be the head coach at USC where he had been an assistant on Pete Carroll’s championship teams and the mere mention of his name around Vol fans is enough for them to lose their lunch and enter a fit of rage.

If there’s anyone who has been in the shoes of Kiffin and can help give him some advice about returning to the place you used to call home before ditching the fans who once loved you, it’s his boss, Alabama head coach Nick Saban.

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    • Saban had some advice for Kiffin and how he won’t let his return to Tennessee serve as a distraction for the Crimson Tide.

    “I think it’s only a distraction if you allow it to be a distraction,” he said, via Coachingsearch. “I always use the analogy that, at Michigan State, we always had these things that were going to happen when we played at Notre Dame. The Gipper was coming back and speaking to the team, and all these things were going to happen. What I used to tell the team was that really doesn’t mean anything unless it means something to you. If it doesn’t mean anything to us, and we can stay focused on what we need to do to do what’s best for our team, then that’s the way you manage it and handle it, and that’s the way we need to look at it.

    "“It doesn’t mean anything to us. The game, our players, their players, that’s what means something to us, and that’s what should mean something to every coach on our staff.”"

    Saban has first hand experience when he returned to LSU, the school where he won his first national title, as the head coach of bitter rival Alabama and admitted that was a very “negative” experience.

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    • “The only experience I have is when I went back to Baton Rouge, and it was very negative, getting hung in effigy, burned at the stake, just about everything that could happen happened,” Saban said. “But the way I try to manage it with the players is let them know that’s going to happen in advance, and not to be affected by it. That it would probably be rowdy when we got off the bus to go to the locker room, but that really would have nothing to do with what happened in the game. That was going to come down to what we did on the field. I would hope it’s our approach to do the same thing in this game.”

    The return of Kiffin may mean more to the fans who have not returned to a bowl game since he left the team hung out to dry in what could have been a very promising future together. However, as we know hindsight is 20/20 and Kiffin and Tennessee haven’t been the same since.

    Kiffin’s offense scored 59 points last week and I’m sure he’d like to put up a similar score this week in front of more than 100,000 people who would love nothing more than for him to fall on his face.

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