Nick Saban responded to the idea that Kevin Steele may not be the defensive coordinator anymore

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin noticed something on tape when preparing for Alabama. He noticed that the defense didn’t seem like a Kevin Steele defense. So, he came out and said he thinks that Nick Saban made a midseason coordinator change.

During his press conference on Monday, Nick Saban came out and denied that there was a coordinator change, reaffirming Kevin Steele’s role in the position.

“This other thing that I hear floating around out there, I’m sure you’ve seen the same reports that I’ve seen, is Kevin Steele is the defensive coordinator,” Nick Saban said. “He has all the defensive coordinator responsibilities.”

Despite that, Saban did admit that they tried to make some changes on the defensive side of the ball in terms of how signals are administered.

“The only thing that we try to improve on from an administrative standpoint was game day administration of getting the signals in quicker. So, that’s the only thing that we worked on together as a staff. The whole staff made a contribution to it, and I think it was a lot better in this game than it was in the Texas game.”

Kevin Steele was hired by Nick Saban to run Alabama’s defense this offseason, replacing Pete Golding who is now at Ole Miss. This is actually Steele’s third stint as a defensive assistant under Saban. Kiffin and Steele even spent some time together on the staff at Alabama. So, there is a certain level of familiarity between the two coaches already.

Despite that, Saban remained adamant that Kiffin wasn’t correct in his assertion Steele wasn’t running the defense, even if he never directly accused Kiffin of being wrong or even used his name while talking about Steele.

Lane Kiffin on Kevin Steele

Lane Kiffin explained that he has coached with and against Kevin Steele in the past and argued that what he sees on tape doesn’t match what he knows about Steele.

“We’ve been against Kevin a number of times. Worked with him at Alabama and against him at Auburn and LSU. There seems like there’s been a change there,” Kiffin said, according to Ben Garrett of OM Spirit on the On3 network.

“I don’t know what happened after the Texas game, but our guys watching the TV copy and schematically in this last game, certainly seems like T-Rob’s now calling the defense. We played him before at South Carolina, so we’re preparing accordingly for him calling the defense. He’s done a good job, too, and they’ve got really good players.”