Nick Saban shares hilarious story of Jack Lambert, Rolling Stones concert

Jack Lambert is a Hall of Fame linebacker after an amazing career at Kent State and with the Pittsburgh Steelers. But he might owe that success to Mick Jagger.

Yes, that Mick Jagger.

Nick Saban shared an amazing story on “Hey Coach and The Nick Saban Show” about his days playing alongside Lambert at Kent State. Lambert was a defensive end when his career started and Saban was a defensive back.

One night, Saban and other members of the team were hired to work security at a Rolling Stone concert. Kent State linebacker Bob Bender was one of the players who worked, and he made quite an impression on Jagger.

What happened next changed the trajectory of Lambert’s career.

“Bender’s on the stage, Mick Jagger comes off,” Saban recalled. “Somebody tries to throw something [at] him and Bender knocks it out of his hand, and Jagger calls him in and hires him as the bodyguard. He was the linebacker, not Jack Lambert, on our team. Bender doesn’t show up for fall camp, so Don James says, ‘Well, we’ve got to have a middle linebacker, that’s the most important thing.’ We played a 4-3 defense in those days, so he moved Jack Lambert to middle linebacker and the guy made like All-American.”

The transition to linebacker certainly paid off for Lambert. The Steelers drafted him in the second round of the 1974 NFL Draft and he went on to have a brilliant career. He was named to nine Pro Bowls, helped Pittsburgh to four Super Bowls and was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990.

Does that mean Jagger should be credited with Lambert’s career?

“Well, I didn’t say that,” Saban joked. “But it certainly was the circumstance that made it happen.”

How Jack Lambert pulled off the ‘greatest individual performance’ Nick Saban has ever seen

With Bender out of the picture and Lambert moving to linebacker, it set the stage for a huge game: Kent State vs. Miami (Ohio) in the MAC Championship.

In that game, Miami had Bob Hitchens at tailback. On the 1-yard line, the RedHawks tried running a play to get Hitchens into the end zone. That’s when Lambert did something that still impresses Saban to this day.

“In those days, you just got in the eye formation and tried to just jump over the pile,” Saban said. “We played a seven-diamond defense and Jack Lambert was the middle backer and he lined up as deep as the tailback. They would hand him the ball and he would jump over the pile, and Jack Lambert would jump up and knock him back four times in a row.

“They never scored in the championship. It’s the greatest individual performance I’ve ever seen.”

Saban is getting ready to coach in a conference championship this weekend when No. 3 Alabama takes on No. 1 Georgia in Atlanta.