New book reveals Nick Saban once threatened to fire Jimmy Sexton over 'narcissistic' Lane Kiffin
One of college football’s most unique relationships has to be the one between Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin and former Alabama head coach Nick Saban. At one point, Kiffin was the assistant coach who helped modernize the Alabama offense but there was also tension when the two worked together.
In fact, according to a new book, “The Price: What It Takes to Win In College Football’s Era of Chaos” by Armen Keteyian and John Talty, sports superagent Jimmy Sexton, who represents both coaches, played a key role in bringing the two together, according to a review from AL.com.
Of course, that marriage of convienence wasn’t always idyllic, including one such instance when Saban threatened to fire his longtime agent after getting frustrated with Kiffin’s attitude.
Kiffin actually warned Sexton that an angry phone call with Saban was on its way after a meeting where Kiffin allegedly told Saban “he didn’t know what he was talking about,” per AL.com. That led to Sexton hearing about Saban’s frustrations with his offensive coordinator.
“That son of a bitch,” Saban said, according to AL.com‘s review of the book. “I’m going to fire you, Jimmy, for ever talking me into hiring that narcissistic prick.”
Prior to landing at Alabama, Kiffin was just months removed from a midseason firing as USC’s head football coach, including famously being left on the runway after a road loss to Arizona State. Serving as Alabama’s offensive coordinator beginning in 2014 was a way for Kiffin to revive his coaching career, spending three memorable seasons in Tuscaloosa.
Kiffin was brought on because Saban was looking to modernize the Alabama offense.
“When I met with him about coming here, I said we have to change, we have to study and we have to figure out all these RPOs and all this spread offense and these motions and all these things we do,” Saban said at the time, according to AL.com. “And Lane is a really smart guy. So he was a good guy to really dive into this.”
Of course, there were personality conflicts between the disciplined Saban and chaotic Kiffin, including Saban lamenting his inability to rein in Kiffin at times. That once led to Saban telling a different assistant, “I ain’t never had a f****** coach I can’t control,” per AL.com. In another instance that Kiffin has since remembered, he got yelled at so badly by Saban that he thought the legendary coach was going to physically fight him.
At the same time, Nick Saban was defensive of this hire in public at the time, according to AL.com: “If I did what you all thought when I hired the guy, he wouldn’t even be here. So maybe that was the assumption because nobody thought it was a good hire that all of a sudden there was something bad. But I thought it was a good hire.”
Following the 2016 season, Kiffin finally landed another head coaching job, this time at FAU. It’s a job he took during Alabama’s College Football Playoff run, which famously led to Saban firing him between the semifinal and national championship game. Kiffin later became the head coach at Ole Miss ahead of the 2020 season, but finished with an 0-4 record against Saban in Oxford. He’s 0-5 against Saban if you include his one season at Tennessee.
Despite those losses, Kiffin has always publicly praised Saban and been thankful for his time in Tuscaloosa.
“Just very appreciative to Coach Saban, who called the other day and stopped me and talked to me there,” Kiffin said at SEC Media Days.