Nick Saban opens up about the lasting impact Lane Kiffin had on Alabama's offense

In 2014 — just as the College Football Playoff was coming about — Nick Saban wanted to modernize the Alabama offense. After the 2013 campaign, Saban lost his offensive coordinator, Doug Nussmeier, to Michigan, and that’s when he hired former Tennessee and USC head coach Lane Kiffin to take the role.

As Kiffin’s Ole Miss Rebels prepare to host Alabama this week, Saban said the growth of the offense started with his decision to hire Kiffin, even if the Crimson Tide are doing things differently with Bryce Young at quarterback.

During Kiffin’s three years in the role, the Crimson Tide averaged 36.9 points per game and made back-to-back national championships. That laid the groundwork for an impressive run with future head coaches Mike Locksley and Steve Sarkisian at offensive coordinator.

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“We change philosophies totally, and that was one of the reasons that I wanted to hire Lane,” Saban said on “Hey Coach and the Nick Saban Show” Thursday. “He had really never done this stuff prior to coming here, aight? But when I met with him about coming here, I told him, ‘We’ve got to change, we’ve got to study and we’ve got to figure out all these RPOs and the spread offense and these motions and all these things that we do.’

“Lane is a really smart guy, so he was a good guy to sort of dive into this, aight? And we gradually changed and grew in this offense, studied other people. That was the evolution of where we are.”

After Sarkisian left to become the head coach at Texas, Saban hired former Penn State and NFL head coach Bill O’Brien as offensive coordinator. He helped Young become the first Alabama quarterback to win the Heisman Trophy last year and put himself at the forefront of NFL Draft conversations. But he’s been more of a drop-back, pocket passer compared to other quarterbacks before him.

However, Saban anticipates the offense will work its way back to what it was under Kiffin.

“I think last year and this year, we’ve kind of gone more even to the drop-back passing, and that’s because of Bryce,” Saban said. “But I think in the future, we’ll get back to more of the conventional spread, run the ball, have more balance, RPOs, that type of thing. What we’ve done now is to sort of fit what Bryce does best.”