Redeemed Lane Kiffin Is College Football's Hottest Coach, Again
NEW ORLEANS — Lane Kiffin is no longer a circus act. He is a football coach.
Nicknamed the Boy Blunder at Tennessee for misdeeds and misspeaking, rudely fired by Southern Cal on the tarmac of an airport, Kiffin has been laundered at Alabama by the stony Nick Saban. He has been rinsed, and he is in the spin cycle.
"I should pay him for this opportunity," Kiffin said about Saban, who hired Kiffin as his offensive coordinator last January when Doug Nussmeier left for Michigan.
Now look at him.
Kiffin has taken a 6'0" quarterback, a very good college wide receiver and a pretty good offensive line and showed just how tactical and skilled he is as a football coach.
Quarterback Blake Sims, a fifth-year senior, was a castaway on the depth chart, moving from running back to wide receiver and forever tagged for the scout team. Playing for Kiffin, the coach he has wanted to play for since Kiffin recruited him at Tennessee, Sims threw for a school-record 3,250 yards in 2014 and has Alabama in the national semifinals.
Amari Cooper, a wide receiver, has caught 115 passes and become an All-American in a program that typically produces All-American running backs (Julio Jones notwithstanding). Kiffin's play design moved Cooper around and prevented opponents from getting their hands on him or doubling him. Kiffin's scheme, in most games, was too sophisticated for other college coaches.
More than anything, Kiffin opened a window for Saban into the modern era of the game and speedball football. Saban frowned on the hurry-up offense before this season, but he and Kiffin discovered that Sims thrived in it, and they turned it into a weapon.
Saban wanted to be more explosive on offense, to keep up with Auburn and Texas A&M, and Kiffin made it happen.
These days, Kiffin is being labeled Boy Wonder, not Boy Blunder. He has status again, thanks to Saban and his own genius for offense that never went away.
"It's humbling," said Kiffin, who expects to be back at Alabama next season. He has a three-year deal that pays $680,000, $680,000 and $714,000, according to AL.com, but he likely will get a significant raise for his good work.
On Monday, in a required interview session for the media before the Sugar Bowl, Kiffin was briefly a circus act again, but for just 40 minutes in two sessions. Media crowded around him three-deep at one table. In another session, cameras and lights were in full motion and glare. Reporters stood four-deep to get a measure of him.
There were some brief moments when the wise guy "Kif" showed up with some quips, but mostly he responded to questions in the manner of his tie—pulled up tight and straight.
Kiffin always had it in him. When he arrived at Tennessee as head coach in 2009, he took the Vols offense from 268 yards a game to 383 yards a game. But all that good work was obscured by hijinks in recruiting, a feud with Florida coach Urban Meyer and his dastardly departure from UT to Southern Cal in the middle of the recruiting season.
After Kiffin was fired by USC in 2013, he was radioactive.
"I got fired. I was an unemployed coach. The phone wasn't ringing," Kiffin said. "[Saban] called and took a chance. It wasn't going to be a popular choice with the media."
Saban couldn't care less what the media thinks, so Kiffin was in good hands. One of the rules of working with Saban is that there is "one voice" for the program; assistant coaches do not give interviews.
It was perfect for Kiffin. He would coach, and only coach. He could put away the stand-up act.
"I just always took the approach—and it haunted me at times, especially when you lose when everything gets magnified—I was just going to say whatever's on my mind," Kiffin said. "It wasn't going to be coachspeak, and I wasn't going to go up there and say what every other coach gets up and says, because that's not what you guys want to hear. So I'd answer questions exactly what I was thinking, as if I was having a one-on-one conversation. Sometimes that comes back to haunt you."
There is a perception that Saban has drained some of the fun from the job, but Kiffin still has a needle and can be a quipster.
Kiffin remembers his trip back to Knoxville in October and the shower of boos that rained down while he and Saban walked together. "[Saban] made a joke one time on how did I get higher on the most-hated list than he did," Kiffin recalls. "He might have been mad about that."
Kiffin was asked this question: How would you characterize your relationship with Saban? Is it like father/son, like older brother/younger brother or crazy uncle/immature nephew?
"You're really trying to get me to make SportsCenter today," Kiffin said. "That's the third question you've set me up with."
He was reminded that he is viewed as a "divisive" guy in the college football industry, and Kiffin said, "God, this [interview] was going so well."
Kiffin has proved some people wrong about his tactics and worthiness as a college football coach. That's on the field. Off the field, well, we'll see how much he has grown when he is hired as a head coach in 2016. He will not go back to the NFL—he almost said as much here Monday—but Kiffin will be hired because he can coach, he will be redeemed, and the trend is to hire an offensive guy and have him bring a wingman.
If I had to guess, I would lay odds on Miami. Al Golden has another year to get things right there, and it is going to be uphill. Can Miami, with all its history of rule-bending, afford to hire Kiffin? People wondered if it was the right move for Alabama.
It was.
Ray Glier covers college football for Bleacher Report.
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