Nick Saban reveals why he chose to not watch Lane Kiffin ESPN documentary: 'I lived it for three years'

Lane Kiffin has had one of college football’s most tumultuous coaching careers, a rollercoaster ride that began in 2007 when he became one of the NFL’s youngest head coaches at just 31 years old. That nearly two-decade ride continues as Kiffin is in the midst of his sixth season leading Ole Miss, where he has the No. 13 Rebels undefeated entering Saturday’s Top 15 showdown vs. No. 4 LSU.

Ahead of that game, ESPN released an hour-long documentary about Kiffin’s turbulent coaching career titled “E60: The Many Lives of Lane Kiffin” on Wednesday. The in-depth documentary delves into the Ole Miss coach’s legacy on the field and his life as a father away from it.

But while it was certainly must-see TV for diehard Rebels fans, not everyone was as interested in “The Many Lives of Lane Kiffin,” especially the man that Kiffin credits for rehabbing his coaching career: former Alabama head coach Nick Saban. Saban famously hired Kiffin as the Crimson Tide offensive coordinator in early 2014, just months after his infamous firing as USC‘s head coach on the tarmac of the Los Angeles International Airport midway through the 2013 season.

“First of all, I didn’t watch the documentary because I lived it for three years. That was good enough for me,” Saban deadpanned Friday during his weekly appearance on The Pat McAfee Show. “But I have a tremendous amount of respect for Lane. You know, this guy is a great coach. I think at that station of his life, he’d been a head coach, now he’s got to go back to being an assistant coach, and I actually think that’s a hard transition. I was a head coach at the University of Toledo for one year, and then I had to go back and work for (Bill) Belichick as the defensive coordinator in Cleveland, and it’s a hard transition to go from being the boss to taking the orders from somebody else.

“But he did a great job for us, he’s a great play-caller, and I think he’s matured along the way. And I actually think he’s a much better head coach at this (point in his career), or even when we had him, than he was an assistant. But he did a great job of being a very assistant for us, and I’m glad to see he’s overcome so much adversity – some of it self-inflicted – to be in a position to have success (at Ole Miss),” Saban continued. “I mean he’s had success everywhere he’s been since he left Alabama, and he had a tremendous amount of success at Alabama. And it does in fact make me really proud to see guys that did a great job for us as coaches on our staff – because they all had goals and aspirations to become coordinators or head coaches – to be able to see them fulfill that.”

Kiffin served as Alabama’s offensive coordinator for three seasons (2014-16), during which the Crimson Tide won three straight SEC championships and the 2015 College Football Playoff national title behind Heisman Trophy-winning running back Derrick Henry. Kiffin’s tenure in Tuscaloosa ended similarly to some of his prior ousters when Saban fired him ahead of the 2016 CFP national title game and replaced him with another disgraced former USC head coach, Steve Sarkisian, who also went through Saban’s coaching rehab clinic before taking over as Texas‘ head coach in 2021.

“You know, some of these guys, whether it’s Mike Locksley, Sark(isian), Lane, whoever it was, that sort of came in after a tough circumstance,” Saban added. ‘You know nobody’s perfect, everybody has flaws, and sometimes those flaws create consequences for you. But everybody should have a second chance and an opportunity to prove they can do something of significance because they would’ve never been in a position they were in as head coach of Southern Cal, Washington or wherever it was, if they weren’t very talented.”