Lane Kiffin quotes Kirby Smart to make Alabama joke to open SEC Media Days

It didn’t take long for Lane Kiffin to take a dig at a rival school. Nor did it take long for Nick Saban’s name to come up during Kiffin’s opening press conference at SEC Media Days on Monday.

After his intro speech, the first question Kiffin was asked regarded trick plays. How Kiffin views them fitting into the offense and how he remembers Nick Saban handling them when they were both at Alabama.

Well, the former Alabama offensive coordinator and current Ole Miss head coach had a snarky answer for the AL.com reporter who posed the question. Here was his response:

“Well, like Kirby Smart used to say. Sometimes you come up here and just end up talking about Alabama. So, first question is somehow about Nick Saban. You know, that’s pretty usual.”

Even after a 10-win season that ended in a Sugar Bowl appearance, Lane Kiffin still can’t escape the Saban shadow.

Kiffin on trick plays

Here was the rest of Kiffin’s answer, mostly-serious, on the trick play question.

“Offense has evolved so much from where we used to be that, in a way, maybe you don’t run as many trick plays because we’re not quite the same as we used to be as far as setting things up as much. Because so much is about tempo and how we do things. So I would guess analytics on trick plays would show maybe we don’t do as many as we used to.”

You’d think a forward-thinking offensive mind like Kiffin would have a lot of trick plays up his sleeve. Perhaps not, though. And when he did propose trick plays at Alabama, he had Nick Saban breathing down his neck, ready to snap if it backfired.

“It had to be a discussion a lot of the times. He would wanna know that week what was in and why. A lot of times you’d run it by him before. And if they worked he was happy. If they didn’t work, you got ass chewings.”