Lane Kiffin 'wouldn't actually be surprised' if Nick Saban returns to coach in NFL

Lane Kiffin wouldn’t be surprised if Nick Saban came back to coaching. Not just coaching, but the NFL!

You read that right. Saban, whose legendary coaching career won him seven national championships, six with Alabama and one with LSU, will lead him to the Hall of Fame one day. But he only had a short stint as an NFL head coach, two years with the Miami Dolphins in between LSU and Alabama.

Kiffin has an interesting relationship with Saban but mentioned how the long time coach isn’t long for television, despite being good at it. Perhaps the NFL is the last challenge for Saban if he’s got time left.

“I do (think he misses coaching),” Kiffin said on This Past Weekend with Theo Von. “I did always think, okay, if he was going to do this, he was going to have to have, and I and they used to say he’s going to have to kind of have that College GameDay spot, because he’s going to want to still, like be involved. You know? He’s just so wired all day long to do something for his entire life, now he’s not going to sit around and just, you know, be a grandpa? That’s not him. 

“So I think because of that, that’s helped a lot. I wouldn’t actually be surprised if he came back in the NFL, even, you know, as head coach, because he’s just so good at it, and so in him that I’m not sure he won’t come back.”

Saban went 15-17 in two years with the Dolphins, but did not make the playoffs in either season. He also coached with the Houston Oilers (1988-89) and the Cleveland Browns (1991-94). He was the DC in Cleveland under Bill Belichick.

Could he go back? Sure, it’s possible. Heck, Belichick is now the head coach of North Carolina, so anything’s possible.

But, you’d  have to convince Saban to leave his cushy TV gig to go back on the sidelines. He was just nominated for an Emmy. It was in the category of “Outstanding Personality/Emerging On-Air Talent.”

The other nominees alongside Saban were former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce (ESPN), former NFL QB Ryan Fitzpatrick (Prime Video), former cornerback Richard Sherman (Prime Video) and former Villanova basketball coach Jay Wright (CBS/TNT).

“I loved coaching pro ball, and if I was going to coach today, based on the circumstances in college and in the NFL, I would coach in the NFL, because all those things in college have changed,” Saban said on The Pivot Podcast with Ryan Clark, Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder, the latter of whom played for Saban during his two seasons in Miami. “The whole idea of what college used to be is not there anymore. It used to be you went to college to develop value for your future. Now people are going to college to see how much money they can make.

“And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but you change the whole dynamic of the importance of getting an education, making good decisions and choices about what you do and what you don’t do to create value for your future. You changed that whole dynamic.”