Alabama Football: Will Lane Kiffin Be Hot Coaching Commodity After 2015 Season?

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — All rivalries are not created equal, especially when it comes to football in the Southeastern Conference.

Yet all are trumped when facing your own brother.

Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin had done that only once before last season. In 2004 he was quarterbacks coach for Pete Carroll at Southern California, and on Week 2 the No. 1 Trojans hosted Colorado State, where his younger brother Chris was a defensive lineman.

The final score was 49-0, Trojans.

Chris is now the defensive line coach and defensive recruiting coordinator for Ole Miss, which knocked Alabama out of the No. 1 spot in the rankings with a 23-17 victory last season. Think he might have said something during the annual family vacation in Florida?

“I really don’t need to, I think he understands,” a smiling Chris said, adding that he would have really rubbed it in had the Crimson Tide not won the SEC title.

“That was not a fun day,” the older brother said in response about the game. “But I did see him at the beach, and he did say something about it, so …”

Such bragging rights are “crucial” (as Chris put it) in such football families, and for a long time they were dominated by their father, legendary NFL coach Monte Kiffin, the architect of the “Tampa Cover 2” defense. Of course, another family showdown looms with Ole Miss at Alabama on Sept. 19 (9:15 p.m. ET, ESPN), but Lane could be on the verge of something special this fall. 

His history is well known. Despite being just 40 years old, Kiffin’s already won a national championship, coached a Heisman Trophy winner and has been the head coach of not only an NFL team but two prominent college programs.

However, none of them panned out as well as hoped. USC’s title and Reggie Bush’s Heisman have since been vacated, while Kiffin went 5-15 with the Oakland Raiders (2007-08) and a combined 35-21 with Tennessee (2009) and USC (2010-13).

But last season, Alabama’s offense had a record-setting year despite being led by a player who had tried running back, wide receiver and defensive back before settling in at quarterback. His mobility and comfort level playing at a faster pace helped lead to the decision to often go hurry-up, no-huddle.

“We changed what we had done for Blake,” Kiffin said. “We went to a different approach.”

Category	Record	Old record
Plays	1,018	962 (2007)
Yards	6,783	6,237 (2012)
Completions	290	263 (2007)
Passing yards	3,890	3,395 (2010)
Passing yards/game	277.9	270.8 (1969)
Passing TDs	32	31 (2012)
First downs	340	303 (2012)

Against Florida in Week 4, Sims threw for more yards (445) than any quarterback Nick Saban has ever coached and set the program record for total yards in a single game (484). He ended up breaking the Crimson Tide single-season passing record during the second quarter of the 2014 SEC Championship Game against Missouri.

Although Sims was a new starter, nearly every other offensive starter had returned from the 2013 team, including wide receiver Amari Cooper, who won Alabama’s first Biletnikoff Award for best receiver.

This year is the exact opposite. The only returning starters are offensive linemen Ryan Kelly and Cam Robinson. Tight end O.J. Howard played in every game in 2014, but with just three starts. While fans are still waiting for his breakout season, he had 17 catches for 260 yards and no touchdowns.

“It’s not Little League, where everyone gets the same amount of touches,” Kiffin said. “You saw it last year with Amari and everything being so lopsided. It came down to ‘OK, if he’s your best player, give him the ball.’

“It’s a basketball mentality. If LeBron’s got 30 at the half, you’re not going to stop passing it to him. I think Amari had 47 catches in the first quarter of games alone. Now he’s gone, so where are those catches going to go? I think O.J. could be a lot of that. He’s a very special player.”

So might be running back Kenyan Drake, who was beginning to emerge as a versatile threat out of the backfield when he sustained a fractured leg and dislocated ankle against Ole Miss. Florida discovered what a tough matchup he can be when on the first snap, Drake burned the man coverage of a linebacker for an 87-yard catch-and-go touchdown.

“I was very thankful to Kiffin for putting his trust in me to do that, and I look forward to seeing what he has up his sleeve this year,” Drake said.

However, as with the top three returning wide receivers, Robert Foster, ArDarius Stewart and Chris Black, who combined for 23 catches and 382 yards in 2014, the key word with all of Alabama’s potential playmakers has to be “potential"—even running back Derrick Henry. He’s never been the primary ball-carrier at this level.

Like last year, the winner of the quarterback competition will go a long way toward determining Alabama’s offensive philosophy, and even then it will remain a work in progress. Senior Jake Coker, who lost out to Sims last year, is the closest thing to an incumbent, and Alabama will give reps to all five contenders during Saturday’s first scrimmage of training camp.

“The one thing about Jake is that there was probably too much put on Jake right away,” Kiffin said. “You would compare it to an NFL rookie quarterback who held out because he didn’t have spring ball. People forget about that when all of the sudden the guy comes in and is supposed to be the guy.”

Mark Dantonio	Cincinnati, Michigan State
Derek Dooley	Louisiana Tech, Tennessee
Jimbo Fisher	Florida State
Jason Garrett	Dallas Cowboys
Michael Haywood	Miami (Ohio)
Scott Linehan	St. Louis Rams
Jim McElwain	Colorado State, Florida
Will Muschamp	Florida
Pat Shurmur	Cleveland Bowns
Bobby Williams	Michigan State

Consequently, should Alabama’s offense put up comparable numbers to last year, a lot of the credit will go to Kiffin, who would go back to being “the guy” for top-level job openings.

In addition to owning a football name, having been a top assistant for Carroll and Saban would be hard for anyone to overlook, especially since Kiffin, to play off his basketball analogy, didn’t do a one-and-done with the Crimson Tide.

“This chapter wasn’t over yet,” Kiffin said about the inquiries he received this past year. “There’s still so many things to learn from Coach.

“Just going into the offseason, it’s kind of like being a freshman. I’ve said that to one of our coaches. I feel like a sophomore now, where last year you’re a freshman just trying to figure it out, trying to get the scripts ready, get to practice and stuff. Now you really start to understand how and why he does it and why it’s so successful.”

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Christopher Walsh is a lead SEC college football writer.

Follow Christopher on Twitter @WritingWalsh.