Nick Saban, Lane Kiffin 'like Earth and Neptune' during time at Alabama

Nick Saban and Lane Kiffin had a unique partnership at Alabama. The camera would often catch the head coach laying into his offensive coordinator on the sideline as the game continued in the background. Despite their many differences, the two coaches have a mutual respect which transcends coaching style.

Last season, Nick Saban and Lane Kiffin were reunited on opposite sidelines of an SEC showdown. The Alabama juggernaut was on its way to a 13-0 season and another national championship, but against all odds it was an inexperienced Ole Miss squad which gave the biggest push.

The SEC shootout went back and forth all night as the two offenses set a blistering pace. In the end, Alabama walked away with a 63-48 win and a new-found respect for Ole Miss.

“That damn Lane, he said it after they played us last year: ‘Everything I told him for three years, he wrote it down,'” Saban recalled, according to ESPN’s Chris Low and Alex Scarborough. “He said after the game, ‘I did every one of those things in the game.’

He continued: “He had a whole notepad of s— that I said was a problem to defend when we were together, and he said, ‘I did every one of them.'”

The two teams combined for an SEC-record 1,370 yards. Ole Miss shattered the record for most yards against an Alabama defense, putting up 647 yards on the night.

Memories of the unique relationship

Everyone in the Alabama program had their own way of describing Nick Saban and Lane Kiffin, some called it a disaster, others a match. But all can agree that it was a little bit weird.

Former SEC assistant coach Lance Thompson described their personalities as “Earth and Neptune.”

That analogy is backed up by the words of former Alabama quarterback Blake Sims, who set several school records under the odd couple.

“I said, ‘We’re about to be deadly, so cold, because I knew what he would do with our offense,” Sims told ESPN. “It was the perfect combination, Coach Saban’s structure and Coach Kiffin’s creative mind.”

While the two did create a dynamic duo, that did not come without plenty of conflict. It can be hard for structure to accept creativity.

“I wanted things done a certain way,” said Saban. “I wanted the coaches to meet, I wanted everybody to have input, and that was not his style. Some of the other coaches complained to me about it, and I always said that Lane would be a much better head coach than an assistant because when you’re a head coach and you know what you want to do and you’ve got organized people around you, you really don’t need to be that organized.”

One assistant on that staff joked: “Lane Kiffin and Nick Saban were a match. It just wasn’t a match made in heaven.”

Lane Kiffin’s retrospective

Time heals all wounds and usually leads to more fond memories than those that came at the end. That is the case for Lane Kiffin, who now has a unique perspective on his time with Nick Saban.

“Like a lot of people do with a previous marriage, I look back on my time now with Coach Saban differently,” Kiffin told ESPN. “I could have done much better with just, ‘Yes sir,’ no matter what he said. That’s the majority of that building. They say, ‘Yes sir,’ no matter what. I guess my issue was that I wasn’t trained that way. I’d been a head coach and an assistant coach to Pete Carroll for six years. Pete Carroll was not a ‘yes sir’ environment at all. It was more, ‘Bring up whatever ideas you want.'”

He continued: “You look back and see where you were at fault and what I could have done better,” Kiffin said. “Now I find myself, which is like a kid saying and doing the same things his parents did, sounding a lot like Coach Saban.”