NEW ORLEANS– When Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin matches wits with Ohio State coach Urban Meyer Thursday night in the national semi-finals here at the All State Sugar Bowl,, he will be bringing some baggage with him from his SEC days.
When Kiffin took the Tennessee job back in 2009, he immediately made a huge political mistake, tweaking rival coaches and accusing then Florida coach Meyer of improper recruiting tactics during a speech to a group of Volunteer boosters. The fact he had his facts wrong created some long simmering feud between the two.
Then there was that small shot he took at Meyer before the Gators faced Alabama in the 2009 SEC title game.
“One of the more stupid things I said when I took a shot at Urban– when I was doing ESPN, I said, ‘Well Florida has better players but Alabama has better coaches.’ What i was trying to say was that my respect from coach Saban’s programs over the years was unbelievable.”
As might be expected, his words came back to bite him.
Kiffin says his ill conceived comments are all in the past now. He would have preferred to develop selective amnesia after he left Tennessee in the middle of the night after just one season to take the USC job. But his words quickly bubbled to the surface the first time Kiffin met with the media during a mandatory pre game press briefing here this week at the Marriott Convention Center. And one respected writer even called him a divisive personality.
“Yeah, coach Meyer and myself communicated a few times over texts,” Kiffin said. “I don’t remember the timing of it. and it was, hey, all this kind of crap from before, let’s move on. I have
great respect what he’s done and how fast he’s gotten this program to being a top four team in the country.”
‘Meyer won two national championships at Florida in 2006 and 2009 before temporarily stepping down in 2010 because of the stress of the job. He resurfaced at Ohio State two years later. Meyer took over a Big 10 program on probation and coached them to 24 straight wins before losing to Michigan State in the 2013 BIG title game. He coached the Bucks to a 12-1 record this season, building his program around speed much the same way all SEC teams do.
Kiffin has learned to reinvent himself, too. After failed adventures at Tennessee and USC, he was given a rare second chance by Saban, who was looking for a new
innovative offensive coordinator.
One of the first things Saban did after hiring Kiffin was put a muzzle on him, telling him he couldn’t talk to the media so he could just focus on the x’s and o’s of the job.
The laboratory experiment has become a huge success. Alabama unleashed an explosive offensive in the SEC– the most difficult, competitive league in the country. the Tide are avearaging 490.5 yards per game, 37.1 points and. 6.7 yards per possession.
Kiffin in retrospect admits his biggest problem in the past was being too honest in the things he said. “I just always took that approach and it haunted me at times. When you lose everything gets magnified,” he said. “But I was going to say what was on my mind. It wasn’t going to be coach speak.
“And I wasn’t going to go up there and say what every other coach says because that’s not what you guys want to hear. So I’d answer questions with exactly what I was thinking
as if I was having a one on one conversation. Sometimes that comes back to haunt me like it did.”
Kiffin spent a year out of the business after being fired by USC after just three years in 2012.
“I thought okay I’m probably not going to get another head coach coaching job but it will be easy to get an offensive coordinator job because of what we’ve done before and the
places we’ve before and the places we’ve been,” Kiffin said. “but the phone wasn’t ringing. Then he (Saban) called. and he took a chance. Because I was’;t going necessarily to be popular hire with the media.
“But he believed in what he thought. I spent three four hours with him at his house and I think he became more comfortable with the the hire after getting to know me.
“It’s been really fun, especially the games. It’s been a long time since I coached offense. The responsibilities as a head coach are more encompassing. But now we’re just focused on the offense, on the players and to see their development and see them play the way they have this year and the excitement they’ve had during he game, has been very satisfying.”
Kiffin has gone through a life changing experience working for Saban. He has already said he planned on being back at Alabama next year to see if we can do this again.”
It will not be easy to stay at full throttle, given the fact ‘Bama will likely lose its best three skill position players– quarterback Blake Sims, running back T.J. Yeldon and wide receiver Amari Cooper But Kiffin has orchestrated the most prolific offense in school history and allowed Sims and Cooper to experience the best seasons ever by a player at their positions.
Sims, a fifth year senior from Gainesville, Ga. who was the MVP of the SEC championship game, is a first year starters who broke the Alabama single season total offense record with 3571 yards. He completed 64 percent of his passes for 26 touchdowns and rushed for another six.
Cooper, a junior from MIami, was a consensus All American and the winner of the Biletnikoff Award, caught 115 passes for .1656 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Saban has given Kiffin the freedom to experiment with his Frankenstein monster .
:”I should pay him to let me coach,” Kiffin said.
Saban, who still has some of his conservative Midwest roots and Big Ten ties, was originally against the idea of wide open, up-tempo football that more and more schools are adopting.
“One of the many reasons why he is so successful and the best coach in the country is he’s not stubborn,” Kiffin said. “He”s not just we’re going to do this because we do this. He’a always researching and always looking at everything within the program and trying to find is there a better way to to it.
:”And I think this is maybe as good an example as you can have. I get a lot of credit for the up tempo offense and what we’ve done with Black and changing from what we did efore. But the reality of the story is this up-tempo offense and going faster and having the fast plays is all coach Saban. This was him from the first day I got here, almost every day talking about we need to play faster, we need to be more explosive.
“We need to run more plays. We need to give defense more problems. And so rally it was what has happened this year with this offense and the numbers black and everything. rally are a credit to coach Saban and what from the first day what he saw going on in college football and said. “Well if it’s working so well and it people so many problems why aren;’ we doing it? That’s where we are today.”
Kiffin has matured a lot since his last job in the SEC and could well become the face of Alabama football when Saban eventually retires But for now, he has to worry about Urban Meyer..
