Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin learned from the best during his time at Alabama working under Nick Saban and hopes to apply that wisdom with the Rebels.
It’s been a crazy journey for Lane Kiffin during his time as a football coach. He’s bounced around from coaching in the NFL as the Raiders head coach to then coaching at Tennessee and USC before landing with Nick Saban at Alabama for three years.
Those were three years that Kiffin desperately needed, as his three previous stops didn’t go great. Kiffin wasn’t a head coach during his time in Tuscaloosa, instead serving as an offensive coordinator, but he did learn a lot from Saban in that time.
During his three years coaching under Saban, Kiffin said on the Pat McAfee Show that the biggest thing he learned from the Crimson Tide head coach was to be more of a CEO than a coach.
“(I learned) really to be more of a CEO,” Kiffin said. “You know, I was always X’s and O’s, always worried about that, and spent all my time on that and recruiting, obviously. But (Saban) does everything. Nothing happens in that building, nothing happens on offense, defense, special teams that he doesn’t know about. And he just does a phenomenal job of, you know, getting everybody on the same page and, you know — every day, no matter whether it’s July or whatever it is, is about Alabama football and how he can make it better.”
Kiffin got another shot at becoming a head coach when he left Alabama to take the Florida Atlantic job. During his time coaching in Boca Raton, Kiffin led the Owls to a record of 26-13 with two separate seasons of an 11-3 record. He did a good enough job there that he was able to find his way back to the SEC, as the Ole Miss Rebels hired him as their next head coach.
Will Lane Kiffin be able to take what he’s learned from Saban and have success at Ole Miss?
The SEC is a whole different animal from what Kiffin was facing in Florida Atlantic.
Kiffin obviously knows that and made sure to delegate different jobs to people on his staff rather than trying to do everything himself.
“When I was calling as a head coach like all the plays and doing it all myself, you know, I’m over there making adjustments while the defense is out on the field. I may not even see a penalty happen or see something I can help them with, you know? So I think that you do a lot better job this way.”
Not many head coaches get another opportunity to prove themselves after flaming out, but Kiffin took what he learned from Saban at Alabama and used that to rebrand himself and further his career.
Kiffin will try to use what he’s learned in order to turn things around at Ole Miss and get them back on the map.