How Lane Kiffin has boosted Alabama, and vice versa
NEW ORLEANS — He had just thrown his third interception. The cauldron of college football's most intense rivalry seemed suddenly too big, too hot, too much. The backup quarterback was warming up on the Alabama sidelines. Tensions were running high.
Lane Kiffin pulled Blake Sims off to the side and offered some comforting words:
"Man, you've had worse days than this — and I've seen you overcome."
Kiffin's impact as Alabama's offensive coordinator can be measured in any number of ways. The records set on offense with a wide-open, occasionally uptempo style that was previously foreign to Nick Saban's teams. The spectacular emergence of star receiver Amari Cooper, results that were equal part talent and Kiffin's knack for scheming mismatches. The nurturing of Sims, the first-year starter whose gradual maturation and improvement was key in Alabama's run to, well, right where the Crimson Tide always runs to.
"Lane has done a fantastic job for us across the board," Saban says.
And as Alabama prepares face Ohio State on Thursday at the Sugar Bowl in a College Football Playoff semifinal, much of the credit for the Tide's continued success should go to Kiffin. He's injected zing into the offense — and according to players and others, into the program.
Credit also goes to Saban for making a hire that seemingly was antithetical to everything his program stood for on the field and on the sidelines. When Kiffin was fired during the 2013 season from USC, he was essentially radioactive. During stints as head coach of the NFL's Oakland Raiders, the University of Tennessee and USC, he had earned a reputation as too brash, with a growing résumé of goofy-gone-obnoxious antics.
Despite Saban's policy of prohibiting assistant coaches from media interviews, it's obvious some things haven't changed. We could also measure Kiffin's impact in fist pumps on the sidelines, or fist bumps with sometimes startled fellow assistant coaches. Or here's yet another gauge:
With time, we could go back through each game and focus on the dozens, maybe hundreds of close-ups of Kiffin on the sideline — or better yet, the shots of Saban trailing Kiffin, scowling and sometimes yelling.
Earlier this month, during brief remarks at a banquet in Little Rock as a finalist for the Broyles Award, Kiffin provided an explanation of those interactions.
"They ask me, 'What is he saying when he's going up and down the sidelines right here behind you?' " Kiffin said — and this came after he'd made a hand gesture to indicate Saban's height, or lack thereof, and had said, "This is why he doesn't let me talk to the media." But he continued:
"He's just saying, 'Hey Lane, I love you so much. Thank you so much for coming here. Can you please stop throwing the ball so much and just run it a few more times, please?'"
As the place dissolved into laughter, Kiffin wore an impish grin. Asked a few days later for his reaction, Saban said he had none, but added:
"I thought it was kind of humorous, but I think what he said … is probably the best message: It's why we don't let him talk to the press. He kind of got that. He understands that."
That is, except for one day in August, when Saban traditionally makes his offensive and defensive coordinators available. And at bowl games when the coordinators are required to participate in a news conference. Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart met with reporters on Sunday; Kiffin's scheduled appearance Monday is certain to attract plenty of interest. Will he say anything juicy? We can hope.
Though Kiffin has mostly been seen but not heard from, his exuberant personality apparently has not been muzzled too much, at least not within the program's walls. Players describe him as playful and funny; Sims, for example, says he routinely runs receivers' routes during practices, just for fun.
"He's pretty good at it," Sims says. "He does some crazy catches with it, too."
Saban describes Kiffin as having "a really good way with players. … He's a confront-and-demand guy, but he has a good personality with them and they respond well to them." And Smart, who says Kiffin is "a joy to be with," says he is as aggressive in the meeting rooms as he is in calling plays.
"I'll say this," Smart says, "he's not afraid to speak his mind — that, or he hasn't learned yet."
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By now, almost everyone understands that Saban's hire of one of college football's more polarizing figures has turned out a masterstroke.
Four times, the Tide piled up at least 600 yards. Alabama averaged almost 500 yards and set a school passing record.
And it's not just what the offense has done, but how they've done it, forsaking the grinding, ball-control style for the spread and passing the ball more with a first-year starter than they'd even considered with three-year starter A.J. McCarron.
Alabama has talented skill players, starting with Cooper. But the offensive explosion was a product of Kiffin's ability to design game plans and his knack for calling plays. Cooper, for example, had 104 catches in his first two seasons, and 115 this season (for 1,656 yards and 14 touchdowns).
"He does a great job of utilizing personnel groupings and misplacing personnel to get the matchups (he) wants," Arkansas defensive coordinator Robb Smith says. " … As the season went on, from Day 1 'til the very end, the different places he put Amari Cooper ... it makes it really hard to zero in on one player."
A couple of examples, from the Tide's win in September against Florida, are instructive. On Alabama's first play, Kiffin started Kenyan Drake in the backfield, then motioned him wide, knowing the Gators would send a linebacker into coverage. The result: an 87-yard touchdown pass.
Later in the first quarter, Cooper lined up in the slot, and knew Florida would expect a flag route. Instead, Cooper faked the flag, ran a post — 79-yard touchdown.
"That's Lane Kiffin all the way, man," says Ed Orgeron, the former Ole Miss head coach and longtime USC assistant with Kiffin —and more recently, on Kiffin's staff at USC. "He knows he has the mismatch, and he knows they have the defense he predicted for the play."
Recall how USC's wide receivers always seemed to become stars? It's why Kiffin was once considered a boy wonder as an offensive assistant coach.
"That's the Lane Kiffin I knew as an offensive coordinator when we won the national championship (at USC)," says Orgeron, who served as USC's interim coach after Kiffin was fired. "That (Alabama) offense right there is the use of the personnel, the mismatches, the run-pass conflicts that he puts on defenses, the mixing up of taking a shot down the field and running the football — I just thought he did a tremendous job this year.
"I know Coach Saban has been good to him — but I think he's been good to Coach Saban and Alabama."
It's not just game-planning. Orgeron says Kiffin seems to see games unfold as if in slow motion, which is why sometimes he'll find a groove as a play caller.
But there's more to it: Kiffin has evolved along with Alabama's offense. Orgeron says Kiffin called him last spring, excited about the uptempo offense the Crimson Tide was planning to use — but which he had never coached. Alabama has at times looked more like its fastball rivals than anything resembling the offenses of previous Tide teams. The Tide averaged 72.9 plays a game, almost 10 more than in 2013.
"I think that (Kiffin's) willingness to make changes in what he's always done because of the personnel that we have was something a lot of coaches wouldn't want to do," Saban says. "You know, they'd want to stay with the system that they know. (But) he certainly did an outstanding job of tailoring our offense to the people that we have, featuring players, doing what the quarterback can do, and it's worked out extremely well for us."
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Sims, a senior who once played running back, set the Tide's single-season passing record, with 26 touchdowns and only seven interceptions. His dual-threat skills are dramatically different than those of McCarron or any previous Alabama quarterback under Saban. And Kiffin's role in developing Sims probably can't be overstated — or his ability to help Sims manage in difficult situations, either.
When, exactly, had Sims had worse days than in the first part of the Iron Bowl, when his mistakes helped put Alabama in a big hole?
"In practices," Sims says, smiling.
And if the entire idea seems iffy — three picks led to 17 points and a double-digit lead for Auburn, and Jacob Coker was throwing passes as the coaches decided whether to pull Sims — what Kiffin said somehow calmed Sims. And it's been that way all year.
"You make a bad play and you come off the field," Sims says, "and he's smiling and joking with you? You kind of forget about it. Next time you go out, next drive, you're ready to go."
Sims finished the Iron Bowl by completing 10 of his last 12 passes, for three touchdowns. He also ran for a score. Alabama won 55-44, outshooting its biggest rival.
The results this season have people wondering, already, if Kiffin might be on the way to rehabilitating his image much more quickly than expected, and if the guy who was seen as radioactive might soon get another shot as a head coach. He's still only 39. And if he's helped change Alabama for the better, why couldn't it work the other way, too?
Whatever happens, Kiffin has clearly had worse days. This season, we've seen him overcome.