Lane Kiffin explains how early-season losses can be a positive for teams like Alabama

Much to his chagrin, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin was asked Wednesday on an SEC teleconference call to reflect on his time on Nick Saban‘s staff in 2015, when the Crimson Tide lost a game to Ole Miss just three weeks into the season but went on to win a national championship.

He was asked the question in the context of Saturday’s Alabama loss to Texas and what it might mean for the Crimson Tide.

“You know, sometimes an early loss can be good,” Kiffin said. “And I mean it’s not Alabama week, but I’m getting Alabama questions already. But I think they’re in even a better position because it actually wasn’t an SEC game.”

Alabama will still have playoff aspirations, though the margin for error is now razor thin.

But the path to the SEC title game is still perfectly clear, with Alabama not having suffered an SEC loss yet. Keep winning in the SEC West and Alabama will be in Atlanta with a chance to punch its ticket, potentially, to the College Football Playoff.

Were that to happen, the Texas game might be looked at as an early blessing, a wake-up call of sorts.

“So an early loss sometimes, over time, has been really good and better than a late loss as we’ve seen in order to get into the playoff and things,” Lane Kiffin said.

Alabama staying internal for motivation

While you might think Alabama players are feasting on some of the negativity or doubting of the program coming off Saturday’s loss to Texas, that’s really not the way that Nick Saban is operating.

The head coach instead is relying on internal motivation to get his team going.

“I haven’t even heard or read any of those things because I don’t really pay a lot of attention to it,” Saban said. “I do pay a lot of attention to what we’re doing here internally and how we can get it fixed so that our players have a better chance to be successful. My approach is to try to play to a standard, try to get our players to play to a standard. And when we don’t play to a standard, I don’t need anybody else to criticize. I’ve got pride in performance just like everyone else in this organization.”

Alabama will return to action Saturday against South Florida with a 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff on ABC.