The odds of Lane Kiffin coming back to Tuscaloosa for a 4th season in 2017 were always around 10%.
Not because of any bad relationships between Kiffin and Nick Saban, but because this was always supposed to be a rehab assignment. Truth be told, Kiffin, at age 41, never should have been relegated back to being an offensive coordinator, even if it was for the best team in college football.
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1. His contract with Alabama was only for 3 years
…and the plan was always for him to be gone to another head coaching job after those 3 years. Just long enough to collect what was left from his contract with USC.
Kiffin never saw himself staying as an offensive coordinator. He had been a head coach in the NFL and at two different big jobs at the collegiate level, and was now an offensive coordinator. The true reason for this 3 years in Tuscaloosa was to learn from the best and prove that he could still be an effective head coach.
2. He had done everything he could do at Alabama
Nobody has ever done what he did at Alabama in 3 years.
That’s just the individual single season-records set under Kiffin. In 2014, he set an Alabama record for 484+ yds per game and was 3rd in Bama history this year with 479+ yards per game.
He completely changed the offensive culture under Nick Saban. He’s won SEC titles with 3 different first-time starting qbs (and 3 completely different types of QBs), including a true freshman this year. What else can he possibly do at Alabama?
3. It’s difficult to prove you can be an effective head coach under Nick Saban
Regardless of who the coach is, or what they’re capable of doing, if they work for Nick Saban, their success will always be contributed to the fact that they work for Saban and they have the best football players to be able to do it. It’s been like that with a ton of coaches that have gone through Tuscaloosa. Kiffin was able to do something that nobody else had been able to – change the offensive philosophy under Saban. The no-huddle, the spread, the read-option, etc. None of that was run before Kiffin joined the staff in Tuscaloosa. So it obviously looked a lot like Kiffin was the reason the offense joined modern football and was able to run over so many teams in the 3 years he was there.
The storyline with Saban assistants, though, is that they look great when they work for Saban, and then don’t look very good without him (i.e. Derek Dooley at UT, Muschamp at FL and SoCar, McElwain at Florida, Smart at Georgia, etc). It’s tough to get past that mindset. Without going out and taking a chance, people would always say the same thing about Kiffin.
4. He was never going to work under Ed Orgeron
The other landing spot for him, unless he stayed with Nick Saban, was the same position at LSU under Coach O.
That was never going to happen.
Orgeron had worked under Kiffin at both Tennessee and USC. Ego had to play a small part in this. Coach O and Lane are actually friends. They speak regularly, and have for years. And yes, I’m sure Orgeron talked to him about joining him in Baton Rouge, and I’m sure Kiffin sounded like he was interested.
But he was never interested. Imagine if your best friend asks you for a favor that’s kinda degrading, but the friend doesn’t realize that it is. Regardless of the pay, working for somebody that worked under you is kinda degrading. Especially when you’re already working for the best coach in the country. But it’s hard to tell one of your best friends that you can’t work for them. So Kiffin put his name in the hat for as many head coaching jobs as he could to make sure that he didn’t have to turn his friend down in a “lateral” move.
5. He WANTS to be a head coach
This has nothing to do with money. He will make less than what he made as Alabama’s offensive coordinator, which was $1.4M. If FAU’s biggest rival is any indicator, he’ll make about what they’re paying Butch Davis at FIU (around $900k per year). It’s about wanting the opportunity to lead your own program, and it was slim pickins in the collegiate ranks this year.
Yes, I think he could have waited around and maybe worked out something with Western Kentucky (a more successful program), but the recruiting base in Florida is awesome. If he can turn around a program that went 12-24 over the last 3 years (including 7-17 in Conference USA), then that could springboard him to a bigger gig sooner than later.
Kiffin was not bad as a head coach. His job with the Raiders may have been too soon for a coach’s first job – especially as a 31 year old. In college, he took big time jobs with unreasonable expectations. At Tennessee, he went 7-6 with a team that had been decimated and run out of control for the last few years that Phil Fulmer was the head coach. He came close to knocking off undefeated Florida (with Tebow) and undefeated Alabama (both on the road) in ’09. His team beat the crap out of Mark Richt’s Georgia team and Spurrier’s South Carolina team. He turned Johnathan Crompton from a terrible qb to a 6th round draft pick that year. Once he left for USC, he went 28-15 there with insanely bad recruiting sanctions. He handed Chip Kelly his first loss at Autzen Stadium back in 2011 (and 1 of only 3 Pac-12 losses Kelly had over 4 years), en route to an unexpected 10-2 season.
If he was at Tennessee right now, he’d be the best head coach in the SEC East, and it wouldn’t be close.
FAU’s schedule next year is not completed, but here are the first 4 games:
9/02/17 Navy
9/09/17 at Wisconsin
9/16/17 Bethune Cookman
9/23/17 at Buffalo
There’s a real chance to go 2-2 starting off, and they can do a lot by looking competent against Navy and Wisconsin.
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