Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has built a successful program leading the Rebels, but years before landing the head job in Oxford, he served as Alabama’s offensive coordinator under Nick Saban.
In a story published by ESPN on Friday, famed Saban stories over the years were unveiled, including one in which the former Alabama coach doled out a hysterical nickname to Kiffin during 2016 fall camp.
One day in practice, Alabama’s starting offense was going up against Alabama’s starting defense. Kiffin was dead set on making the Alabama defense look bad on that particular day. After scoring multiple touchdowns in practice, including several on trick plays, Saban had seen enough.
“[Saban] said that all I was trying to do was win the drill and trick the defense and not help the team,” Kiffin told ESPN. “I was like, ‘Isn’t that the point in good-on-good situations on offense, to see if you can move the ball?’ He was furious,” Kiffin added.
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The next practice, Kiffin admitted he shifted gears, running the most “generic, basic, under-center offense I could,” making Saban even more angry.
The argument moved from the practice field to the meeting rooms afterward, where Saban asked Kiffin why the offense ran the ball on third-and-long. When Kiffin’s reply didn’t satisfy Saban, he told the rest of the assistants to leave the room, and he unleashed on Kiffin, comparing him to the children’s book character P.J. Funnybunny, a bunny who is always causing mischief.
“He screamed at me that I was the bunny,” Kiffin said. “And we were like, ‘What the hell is that? There’s no way that Coach has read a little kid’s bedtime story like that!’”
Saban’s clearly helped with bedtime for his kids and grandkids a time or two. Much to the chagrin of Kiffin.
“…I got a lot of ass-chewings, but that’s the biggest one and one that no one saw. But I deserved it,” Kiffin said.
Long live Nick Saban.