The Magnolia Bowl is bringing Lane Kiffin back to Oxford, and with him comes a chapter from the past. As LSU and Ole Miss prepare for battle, rivalry voices echo through Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, where Nick Saban, the former national champion coach, now faces boos from Ole Miss fans over advice he gave Kiffin a year ago. However, Saban is throwing it back at the Ole Miss fans.
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During the September 19 ESPN College GameDay from Oxford, Pat McAfee introduced the panel to the fans. While introducing Nick Saban, McAfee playfully pointed out that he looked good in a blue suit before calling him “the greatest college football coach of all time.”
As soon as the Ole Miss fans heard it, they started booing Saban, but the former Alabama head coach gave it right back to them.
“So, but everybody makes their own decision. I don’t tell anybody where to go, but just so everybody knows here, I’m used to getting booed in the SEC,” said the former head coach.
Saban had a big hand in the Lane Kiffin-Ole Miss fiasco. When LSU offered Kiffin the head coaching job, he was genuinely torn over what to do. He turned to his family and, most importantly, his peers for advice. But when he asked Nick Saban, the coach he considers his mentor, Saban gave him a blunt answer: Lane Kiffin should leave Ole Miss.
“You’ll always regret it if you don’t go to LSU; it’s the best job in America,” Kiffin said about what Saban told him, via WAFB sports director Jacques Doucet. “When he said that, that really made the decision for me. It has pushed me. It has gotten me out of a comfort zone.”
These words from Saban made Kiffin choose LSU over Ole Miss, and he was not the only one who left. He brought offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., co-defensive coordinator Chris Kiffin, run-game specialist James Cregg, passing-game coordinator George McDonald, running backs coach Kevin Smith, and quarterbacks coach Dane Stevens alongside him, gutting Ole Miss’ top coaching staff and leaving it virtually empty.
With so many top coaches and players leaving Ole Miss, it’s no surprise that the fans aren’t exactly thrilled with Nick Saban’s advice to Lane Kiffin to leave their program. But despite the boos raining down on him, Saban has an answer of his own and a reason for giving Kiffin that advice in the first place.
“I have coaches call me all the time and ask me for advice about what they should do,” Saban said Saturday to Rebels fans booing him. “Typically, I ask them questions. “Where do you think you can win? Where do you think you fit?”
Nick Saban is the man under whom many of today’s head coaches learned the craft. His coaching tree includes the likes of Lane Kiffin, Kirby Smart, Dan Lanning, Steve Sarkisian, Mario Cristobal, and Curt Cignetti, among others. So, it’s only natural that countless coaches turn to Saban for advice, and he gives them his honest take. In Lane Kiffin’s case, Saban did exactly that: he told him what he truly felt.
And while Ole Miss fans may blame Saban, the true antagonist in this situation is their former head coach. Kiffin could have pacified the situation after his exit. However, he added further fuel to the fire with his comments about Ole Miss’s controversial history in March this year. All these narratives take center stage today at Oxford.