Lacking head coach offers, Lane Kiffin loves what Alabama offers

Dan Wolken | USA TODAY Sports

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DALLAS — For the first time in a decade, Lane Kiffin has become a non-story. There’s very little talk about his previous job and almost no speculation about his next one. Television cameras have stopped following him on the sideline, capturing every interaction with Nick Saban for the Twitterverse to interpret. The curiosity factor about his low profile in Tuscaloosa and image-repair job in the Saban shadow was basically over after last season.

Kiffin is Alabama’s offensive coordinator; nothing more and nothing less. At a mere 40 years old, he’s basically being treated like yesterday’s news.

And that’s exactly the opposite of what should be happening.

Hearing Kiffin talk with the media Sunday for the first time since the preseason, it was obvious he wants to be a head coach again after getting fired from Southern California five games into 2013. Given what he’s done at Alabama, transforming the offense while bringing along first-time starting quarterbacks in Blake Sims and Jake Coker, he undoubtedly should have been on athletics directors’ lists this year.

But with the coaching carousel largely over, it seems almost certain Kiffin’s best option will be returning to Alabama for a third season in 2016, which begs the question what more he has to do to get another shot.

“All I can control is improving as a coach, getting our players ready for games, continuing to learn from Coach Saban and whatever happens happens,” Kiffin said as Alabama prepares to face Michigan State on Thursday in the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Cotton Bowl. "I have a great job, and any time there’s any thinking any different, I just remind myself how many people would want to be the offensive coordinator for Nick Saban. Take out the head coaching experience (I had) … If you’d have said you were going to work for Pete Carroll and Nick Saban before you’re 40 years old as their coordinators on very successful teams, you take that in a second.”

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Still, this is a strange spot for Kiffin to find himself at this point of his career. He’s neither the hotshot recruiter with unlimited potential as a head coach, nor the pariah critics at Tennessee and Southern Cal made him out to be.

He has proven strengths, but his failures have not been completely forgiven. That much was obvious during this hiring cycle as 13 jobs in the Power Five conferences were filled and Kiffin’s name was not seriously connected to any of them. While Big Ten defensive coordinators like Chris Ash and D.J. Durkin landed head coaching gigs and even Will Muschamp got a second chance at South Carolina just a year after being fired at Florida, Kiffin was somewhat lost in the shuffle.

One high-level Power Five administrator who was part of a hiring process this season told USA TODAY Sports that Kiffin still carries the stigma of flaming out twice (as opposed to once for Muschamp), even though the negative perception of his season at Tennessee isn’t entirely fair.

Another Power Five administrator who hired a coach this year said the way Kiffin has matured and handled his role under Saban has been impressive but that he may need another year or two at Alabama to make more schools comfortable with him. Both administrators spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic.

Though Kiffin said Sunday he’d “love to” be back at Alabama in 2016, it was obvious he’d prefer to be a head coach again sooner rather than later. This is a guy, after all, who was leading an NFL team at 32, trying to rebuild an SEC program at 34 and named the heir to Carroll’s Trojan dynasty just a year later.

It was too much too soon, and he’s got the scars to show for it. But his experience also makes him uniquely positioned to understand why he failed and what he will correct next time, particularly after working under Saban.

“When and if that time comes, I know I’m much better prepared than I was before,” he said. “Sometimes when you’re young you try maybe too much to be Pete Carroll because you came from him. I think eventually you have to figure out yourself and say, ‘Ok, this is what I take from here, here and here.' ”

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But rather than talking about his maturity or what he’s learned working for arguably the best college coach of all time, the best thing Kiffin can do to sell himself is to simply keeping coaching.

The misconception about Kiffin’s early-career rise is that it was driven by his personality or his ability to recruit. In reality, Carroll recognized him as a uniquely gifted offensive architect and playcaller and put him on a path to stardom by naming him co-coordinator for USC’s supremely talented 2005 team.

It was only years later, when Kiffin made a habit of pushing the envelope of NCAA rules at Tennessee and willingly became the SEC’s new villain, that the Hurricane Lane persona came to life.

Even now, Kiffin’s past seems to overshadow the job he’s done as offensive coordinator, one for which he deserves immense credit for modernizing Alabama’s offensive approach with some up-tempo elements while managing quarterback uncertainty to start both seasons. Aside from the hiccup against Ohio State in last season’s Sugar Bowl, where Kiffin seemed to abandon the running game too early, it’s hard to quibble with anything he’s done.

Rather than trying to fit Alabama’s talent to a particular system, he has learned to adapt Alabama’s approach to the skillset of his players, as Saban demands.

It’s an experience that should serve him well in his next stop — whenever and wherever that happens.

“I think by not being the head coach and going back to being the offensive coordinator affords me time to do those things, going to TCU this offseason, going to Houston with Tom Herman, being able to talk with other coaches as we study their film because that’s all I’m doing,” he said. “The head coach, you don’t have the time to do those things a lot of times. As I look back on what I’d have done different after that 10-2 USC year, I don’t think we grew any. I think I just expected, ‘OK we can go do what we did and do it again.’ ”

Less than two seasons later, he was out of a job and practically toxic, needing Saban to rescue him from coaching purgatory. Kiffin’s reputation has come a long way since then, but obviously not far enough yet. Even in a business where everyone gets a second chance, helping Alabama to another title probably wouldn’t hurt.

“We’ll have a new set of challenges next year,” he said “Third (straight) year of a new quarterback, replacing a Heisman Trophy winner and then some great returning players to work with. I’d be really excited about that.”

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