Nick Saban addresses his role in Lane Kiffin coaching decision, reveals how close he was to staying at Ole Miss

Nick Saban addressed his role in Lane Kiffin taking his new job at LSU after Kiffin said he reached out to Saban and Pete Carroll for advice. Some said, Saban being a former LSU head coach, as well as being repped by the same agency CAA, there would be a conflict of interest due to his position on College GameDay. While discussing the absent Kiffin, who was supposed to appear Saturday on the show, Saban discussed his role.

“Well, I think I get a lot of calls, because some people view me maybe as a senior professional that has a lot of experience in the game, after 50 years, 25 years of the head coach, so as a person, as a human being, you want to help everybody you can,” Saban said on College GameDay. “You know, I’m kind of in this for the betterment of the game, really, for the players and coaches … So anyone who calls me, whether it’s a player, a coach, an administrator, I try to do the best I can, to give them the best information to make the best decisions for the betterment of the game. 

“The first thing I ask a coach, if he’s talking about contemplating changing jobs, is, what do you want to do? And I want them to follow their heart in terms of what they want to accomplish and what they want to do. I never tell anybody what they should do. I just try to bring some thought into it so that they can make good decisions for themselves and their family and their future.”

As far as Kiffin staying at Ole Miss, there was a chance. But the longer it lingered, the more it seemed impossible that he’d stay with the Rebels.

“I think he was very confused,” Saban said. “And I think this is a difficult circumstance to be in. I’ve been in this situation before where you finish the season, you want to stay with your team, you want to coach them, whether it’s in the ball game or the playoffs or whatever it is, but you feel like you owe it to yourself and your family to at least look at other opportunities and consider them and see if they think that’s a better situation for you in the future. And the based on the way the calendar is, that never fits together correctly.” 

Herbstreit then asked Saban about the calendar point and why Ole Miss was different from schools like Tulane and James Madison. The two played in their respective conference championship games and won with coaches who are set to depart for Florida and UCLA, respectively, after the season. Kiffin could not stay at Ole Miss and finish out the year while going to LSU.

“Because those people got together and said, ‘This is not going to be a problem,’” Saban said. “We’re going to let them coach and they’re going to do whatever they do. That’s the way I always did it. When I had assistant coaches who left, I mean, Kirby left right after we won the SEC championship and we’re going to playoffs, I said, ‘Okay, you can go these days and do this, and you can go to the bowl game. Here’s when we’re going to practice. Here’s when I expect you to be here.’”

However, Saban didn’t do that for everybody, namely Kiffin. Kiffin did not finish the College Football Playoff with Alabama before departing for Florida Atlantic ahead of the 2017 season.

“That was a situation where, you know, Lane was struggling to handle taking a new job, hiring a new staff, recruiting new players at a new place, which was Florida Atlantic,” Saban said. “And doing his job at (Alabama) the way the players and the rest of the staff thought he should. So we mutually agreed that it would be better for him just to move on. So it is what it is.”