Lane Kiffin keeps Nick Saban's advice under wraps due to Alabama ties: 'I can't really say exactly what he said'

Lane Kiffin got a lot of advice in his process to decide whether or not to become the next head coach at LSU. Now, with that decision made, he gave credit to some of his biggest mentors who helped him with that, namely Pete Carroll and Nick Saban.

Kiffin spoke on that advice again during his introductory press conference with the Tigers on Monday evening. He said it was all very impactful in helping what was a difficult decision for him, with it helping him to realize that he couldn’t pass up on being in Baton Rouge.

“Yeah, I think that, you know, it was a really difficult decision and, when you’re in those difficult decisions and you’re torn, very torn, back and forth, back and forth and there’s multiple options, you know? There were really, you know, four different places, you know, that we had to think about in this,” said Kiffin. “And, I just talked to them, and it really was apparent too. I felt like everybody I talked to outside of the state that I was in all basically said the same thing, okay. They all said, man, you are going to regret it if you don’t take the shot and you don’t go to LSU. It’s the best job in America with the best resources, and to win it. And, it’s obviously been done here before by a number of people.”

Kiffin already commented a bit on what he heard from Carroll, who he was on his staff for at USC from 2001 to 2006 before succeeding him as the Trojans’ head coach in 2010. He again cited Monte Kiffin, his late father who also worked with Carroll in the NFL, as the basis of what he tried to tell him about taking the job at LSU.

“Pete Carroll, really – he told me, you know, that he always told my dad that he’d look out for me, and so, when we were talking, he really channeled him, knowing him for so long, and he said this is exactly what he would do,” Kiffin said. “He would tell you, boy, go get it, go for it.”

As for Saban, though, who was head coach himself at LSU from 2000 to 2004, and who he worked for as his offensive coordinator at Alabama from 2014 to 2016, Kiffin didn’t share much on what they said to one another about him now taking the Tigers’ job. That’s as he noted that most of his allegiances still lie with the Crimson Tide elsewhere in the SEC.

“And, you know, Coach Saban kind of coached at another place in this conference, so I can’t really say exactly what he said,” Kiffin said, as the media in the room laughed. “But, I’ll say I think the world of Coach Saban, and I respect him.”

Plenty of people were in Kiffin’s ear about whether he should stay at Ole Miss or leave for LSU. Among them were these all-time coaches, with him taking their words into consideration in deciding to become the next coach of the Tigers.