Lane Kiffin Shows Vols Fans What They Missed out on in Return to Tennessee

It’s not often that an assistant coach is the focal point of a college football game, but that’s what Lane Kiffin was on Saturday night in Neyland Stadium.

Kiffin’s sudden, dead-of-night departure from Knoxville in early 2010 left Tennessee fans stunned after what has been the Volunteers’ only winning season since 2008. Like Alabama coach Nick Saban noted earlier in the season, fans only hate a coach who leaves if he was good.

And this is a rivalry that had become especially stale, with Alabama winning the last seven in the series coming into the game and both teams still on very different ends of the college football spectrum.

So the booing and hissing from Tennessee fans was very much expected.

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But once the game got started and the attention turned to the field, Alabama’s offensive coordinator showed just why he was, at one point, a highly in-demand coach. Kiffin called one of his best games of the year in the Tide's 34-20 win over Tennessee, and those Vols fans that gave him hell for the better part of the week and the beginning of the day got an up-close view of what they were missing out on.

The Crimson Tide offense put up 469 yards and featured its best offensive player to put together its most complete road performance of the season.

He couldn’t have scripted the start any better.

On the first offensive play of the game for Alabama, quarterback Blake Sims ran a play-action bootleg that got just about the entire offense moving left. Wide receiver Amari Cooper, lined up on the left side, slipped the other way and after a short toss from Sims outran the rest of the Tennessee defense for a touchdown.

Kiffin was feeling it early.

Alabama jumped out to a 20-0 lead thanks to near-flawless execution from the offense and play calls that seemed to be just a step ahead of the Tennessee defense, which was in the upper half of the SEC for yards allowed entering the game.

After those three drives to open the game, the offense sputtered into halftime. It scored one more time late in the first half after recovering a fumble deep in Tennessee territory but gained just 15 yards on its other two drives.

Following another three-and-out to start the second half, Kiffin turned to a more ball-control approach. The offense went on a 13-play, 76-yard drive that ended with a score that put Alabama up by 17 points, which Tennessee couldn’t overcome.

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Fifty-seven of those 76 yards were on the ground, including a 28-yarder from Derrick Henry that capped the drive. It settled Alabama down and got Sims involved in the game. Kiffin had the QB roll out on most of the passing plays and make plays with his arm and feet when he needed to.

This offense is at its best when it goes through Amari Cooper, and Kiffin definitely made sure that happened tonight.

That opening play was only a sign of things to come, as Cooper finished the night with two touchdowns and 224 receiving yards—a single-game Alabama record. Cooper accounted for nearly half of Alabama’s total offense on the night, thanks to Kiffin giving him a featured role on the night.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough for Tennessee fans, consider this: Sims, who threw for 286 yards and two scores, was heavily recruited by Kiffin at Tennessee.

“I was pretty close,” Sims said earlier this week. “If he didn't go to USC, that's where I would have went.”

Kiffin and Sims could have been the duo that took the field on the opposite sideline of Neyland Stadium on Saturday night. Instead, the pair terrorized Tennessee and led yet another Alabama win in one of the longest winning streaks in the rivalry's storied history.

Marc Torrence is the Alabama lead writer for Bleacher Report. Quotes were obtained firsthand, unless otherwise noted.

Follow on Twitter @marctorrence.