Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin turned down an offer to join Jim Mora’s staff at UCLA.
Lane Kiffin is one of the most polarizing figures in college sports, as he reputation even bleeds into NFL circles thanks to his stint with the Oakland Raiders. But the Alabama offensive coordinator is rehabbing his image after failures at USC and Tennessee, and appears to be in a position to take a head coaching job somewhere in football.
What he won’ the doing is leaving Alabama to be on someone else’s staff.
According to Brett McMurphy from ESPN.com, UCLA reached out to offer Lane Kiffin their offensive coordinator position but the Bama coach declined.
"Kiffin turned the job down, sources said, in the days leading up to the Crimson Tide’s 45-40 victory over Clemson in the College Football Playoff National Championship presented by AT&T."
This isn’t really all that surprising, as Kiffin has a number of reasons to want to suck around Tuscaloosa. For starters, he’s a national champion and has the sweetest gig a coordinator can have in college football. Nick Saban loves him and he’s on a springboard to a head coaching job somewhere — whether that’s the NFL or a Power 5 school. Depending on whether you believe those salacious rumors that popped up about him or not, there’s that too.
Basically, Kiffin is not going to take the same position he has at Alabama at a school where he is worse off. The only incentive he’d have of taking the Bruins job is to begin a position to get promoted i Jim Mora leaves for the NFL next year.
UCLA isn’t a bad program but Kiffin has it as made as he can at Bama right now and isn’t leaving for anything less than a head coaching job in the near future.