Lane Kiffin recalls iconic lashing from Nick Saban: 'I thought he was going to fight me physically'

As we enter a college football world without Nick Saban as the leader of the Alabama Crimson Tide, some hilarious stories are being brought to light.

Of course, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has one or two to share regarding his time spent with Saban in Tuscaloosa. Over the years, Kiffin has laughed about the “ass-chewings” he’s received from Saban when he was the Crimson Tide play-caller, but one stands above the rest.

According to Kiffin via ESPN’s Chris Low and Harry Lyles Jr., the story begins during Alabama’s 2016 Fall Camp. At the time, the Crimson Tide were participating in a “good-on-good” drill, where they would pit their first-team offensive players vs. the first-teamers on defense.

The ever-charismatic Kiffin couldn’t resist the urge to try to make Saban’s defense look bad against his offense, “I’d come from the Pete Carroll camp. I wasn’t wired that way, to let the defense win,” Kiffin recalled.

Evidently, Kiffin had “several coaches on his offensive staff present different types of plays, or what one of those assistants recently referred to as ‘cool plays,’ and put them in before practice,” ESPN reported. Alas, the rest of the offensive staff reportedly knew Saban wouldn’t be pleased.

“We had a really good day on offense, ran some reverses, threw a double pass and had all these touchdowns, and he said that all I was trying to do was win the drill and trick the defense and not help the team,” Kiffin stated. “I was like, ‘Isn’t that the point in good-on-good situations on offense, to see if you can move the ball?’ He was furious.”

Well, Kiffin went as far the other way as he could the next time he had the opportunity, adding that he “ran the most generic, basic, under-center offense,” and in the end, Saban’s defense dominated.

That didn’t please Saban either. According to ESPN, Kiffin was pressed by Saban for an explanation on why he was running that offense, and he recognizes he was being a smart-ass.

“‘I’m just running what I thought you would want me to run against the defense,'” Kiffin answered Saban. “Again, it was just me being smart-ass me.”

Alas, Saban had reached his breaking point. The former Alabama leader decided to tell the rest of his assistants sans Kiffin to leave the room, and the writing was on the wall from there.

“I have to sit there, and he is screaming at me, standing over me screaming as I’m sitting in my chair. I thought he was going to fight me physically,” Kiffin laughed. “So, yes, I got a lot of ass-chewings, but that’s the biggest one and one that no one saw. But I deserved it.”

One of the best parts of Kiffin’s recollection was his final point on the matter, where he remembered Saban compared Kiffin to a children’s book character, P.J. Funnybunny — a spoiled cartoon bunny who went around creating havoc.

“He screamed at me that I was the bunny,” Kiffin said, via ESPN. “And we were like, ‘What the hell is that? There’s no way Coach has read a little kid’s bedtime story like that!'”

It’s easy to see why Lane Kiffin has so much love and appreciation for Nick Saban. The college football world will certainly miss the legendary coach moving forward, but as Saban begins his well-deserved retirement, it’s awesome to hear behind-the-scenes stories like Kiffin’s to remember the good times.