Kevin Steele reflects on coaching career, not holding any grudges

When this college football season gets underway, it will be the first year since 1979 that Kevin Steele isn’t coaching.

Steele has worked under some of college football’s best, including Nick Saban. Most recently, Steele was Auburn’s defensive coordinator. He was promoted to interim head coach when Auburn fired Gus Malzahn last season. Unfortunately for Steele, he would find himself out of a job twice within the ensuing two months.

Steele on coaching under Nick Saban at Alabama

In his career, Steele has made two stops at Alabama working under Saban. He was the defensive coordinator from 2006-2007, and from 2013-2014 Steele served as player personnel director and linebackers coach. Saban is undoubtedly one of the best coaches in the history of football, and Steele is grateful to have worked under him.

“He and I have been friends since I guess 1985, so I’ve known him a long time and a lot of different situations,” Steele said of Saban via Al.com’s Creg Stephenson. “No. 1 is he’s a really good friend and he is a good person. Everybody sees the coaching intensity. It’s there, but it’s not a hard place to work. I was raised by a Marine football coach, so I never knew you had to apologize for being committed to excellence. And that’s what Saban is and he demands it and commands it. But he’s a really, really neat person and fun to be around. He’s got a funny side now. We’ve seen it a little bit more than we used to.”

Following his most recent stop at Alabama, Steele spent a year working under Les Miles at LSU. He then left to become part of Auburn’s staff in 2016. He spent five seasons with Auburn. Steele was eventually named the interim head coach after Malzahn’s firing last season.

Steele was a strong candidate to become Auburn’s coach, but instead found himself out of two jobs

Auburn elected to hire Boise State’s Bryan Harsin, and he hired former Vanderbilt coach Derek Mason as his defensive coordinator. This left Steele without a job at Auburn. He then was brought in as a defensive assistant at Tennessee under Jeremy Pruitt. Pruitt was fired in January after an NCAA investigation. Steele was yet again an interim head coach, this time at Tennessee. UCF’s Josh Heupel then became Tennessee’s head coach, and Steele was not retained on the staff.

Despite being passed over for two jobs back-to-back, Steele isn’t holding any grudges. Steele is a fan of both Harsin and Heupel, and he hopes that both programs see success.

“I want Tennessee to win and get it back to the way it should be,” Steele said. “Josh is a good guy. I think he’s got a lot of energy, brings a lot to the table offensively. And then I was very impressed with bryan when I met him in the interim. He’s a very, very smart football coach. You can tell he’s a leader, it doesn’t take long when you’re in the room with him. There are good players there. As he gets that thing molded like he wants it, hopefully there will be a lot of success.”

Instead of dwelling on the negative moments in his final days at Auburn, Steele instead chose to appreciate the moments that he did have there.

“I’m comfortable with who I am,” Steele said. “I’ve been very blessed. So I think at the moment that it happened, probably (there was disappointment), but you know, there’s a reason that the rear-view mirror is small and the windshield’s big. You look out ahead and you just look back to just check things every now and then.

“Disappointing at the moment yes, but no, absolutely no bitterness. It was too a great run (at Auburn). And I had too much fun at all to remember three or four days where things didn’t work out the way that maybe you wanted them to. I enjoyed that place too much, I love it. I think it’s a wonderful place. And that’s what I’m going to focus on.”