CLEVELAND, Ohio — Jets coach Adam Gase recalls packing up his car as a new Michigan State grad and driving 18 hours straight through to Baton Rouge, La., to follow Nick Saban to LSU as a grad assistant.

The plan was for Gase, then 22, to arrive and crash on the couch of his new roommate Freddie Kitchens, also a new grad assistant.

But the affable Kitchens, then 25, had other other ideas.

“All I want to do is just sleep, and Freddie’s like ‘No, we’re going out,’" Gase told cleveland.com on Wednesday as he prepared to face Kitchens, the Browns’ first-year head coach, on Monday Night Football. “I said, ‘I’m not going out.’ And he was like ‘Oh, we’re going out’ in typical Freddie Kitchens fashion.

"He can talk anybody into anything, and of course by the time that discussion was over, I’m getting out of the shower and getting dressed and ready to go out with him.’’

On his $8,000-a-year salary, Gase didn’t have much choice but to sleep on the couch in Kitchens’ one-bedroom apartment.

“I just remember it wasn’t the best place,’’ Kitchens told cleveland.com on Tuesday. “Still had shaggy carpet and all of that, and that was in 2000."

But the two young “grad-asses” didn’t spend much time in their bachelor pad.

“It was just two guys that were GAs who worked a lot and occasionally we’d be able to go have a couple cold ones,’’ said Gase. “You know how it is with Freddie, he’s a fun guy to be around.’’

But the two shared a passion for football and for absorbing all the knowledge they could from Saban, now the legendary coach at Alabama.

“I remember us being up there all the time working,’’ Kitchens said. “He was on the defensive side, I was on the offense, so he ran Coach Saban’s stuff, his schedules and stuff like that. We lived together for a few months until I got married in July. But yeah, we had a good time. I consider Adam a good friend.’’

On Friday nights before games, some staffers would often leave to go to the movies, but Kitchens and Gase were so exhausted “we’d stay and get rest,’’ Kitchens said. Saban, the former Browns defensive coordinator, was in the first of his five seasons at LSU. He recalls the two young assistants, which also included future Browns defensive coordinator Mel Tucker as defensive backs coach.

“Adam was at Michigan State and came with me to LSU, and then Freddie joined us right then, and those two guys, they both were good,’’ Saban told cleveland.com in June. “I knew they’d go far.’’

What stood out about Kitchens, who left after that 8-4 season and Peach Bowl victory to take a job as running backs coach at North Texas, was his impact on the players.

“He had a way about him and players respected him,’’ Saban said. “I thought Freddie had from being a quarterback here at Alabama as well as when he coached his players, he controlled the room and he had leadership about him. He affected them. He set a good example for them. He cared enough about them to help them for their benefit.’’

He said such qualities are immediately evident in a coach.

“We’ve had a lot of guys when they were young, whether it’s Jason Garrett in his first coaching job at Miami, or any of these guys and you immediately see how the players respond,'' said Saban. "Do they respect him? Players respect you because you tell them the truth and they believe you know what you’re talking about, and that’s how they improve. If you don’t have any knowledge, they’re not going to respect you, so I was always impressed with those guys.’’

Gase actually helped out on Saban’s staff as an undergrad at Michigan State. Gase’s high school coach recommended him to Saban’s then-defensive coordinator Dean Pees, now the Titans’ coordinator.

“There was a guy that played on our team from his high school that was a quarterback. They were friends,’’ Saban said. “He ended up coming around a little bit when he was a student and had a genuine interest in the game, and wanted an opportunity to create a role for himself where he could do something.’’

Gase, in fact, was the only Spartans staffer who joined Saban at LSU.

“The first thing is the guy has a great work ethic,’’ Saban told the New York Post about Gase. “The second thing is, he’s very intelligent, and you could kind of see right off the bat that he was a conceptual thinker that really understood the game well and picked up quickly on things that young guys learn. It was no surprise to me that he blossomed in the profession and he’s done a really good job.

“It was pretty obvious that he had the right stuff. He was a very loyal guy, too, which I really appreciated.”

Gase credits Saban in large part for his journey to NFL head coach.

“It was just one of those things where you just paid attention and listened to what he said and how he did things,’’ Gase told cleveland.com. “A lot of us find ourselves either mimicking or applying a lot of the things that we learned under him. I know I find myself going back and doing a lot of the things the way he taught things or the way he approached a game week or after a loss or after a win.’’

Gase joked “it kind of wrecks the thunder when you’ve stolen something good from Nick and then you’ve got four guys from Alabama that are on your team that every time you start doing something, they’re like ‘Yeah, we’ve already heard this before.’ ’’

He cited some of the other GAs under Saban, a list that is a Who’s Who of coaching.

“It’s a unique situation,’’ Gase said. “There’s a lot of guys. When I was at Michigan State, it was Josh McDaniels (Patriots OC), Brian Daboll (Bills OC), Mel Tucker (Colorado head coach), Chuck Bullough (Michigan State defensive ends). That room was littered with guys and then down at LSU, it was me and Freddie, Jay Rodgers, he’s a D-line coach at Chicago. It’s amazing to me how he’s a starting point for so many guys, through his career. They were never really assistant coaches for him but were GAs and got starts with him.’’

Saban said that although he knew Gase and Kitchens would be excellent coaches, he didn’t know if they’d get the rare opportunity to climb to the top of their profession.

“Sometimes it’s about getting the right job in the right place where you have success and that success creates some opportunities,’’ he said. “And if you have the right stuff, you’re able to take advantage of it.’’

Saban wasn’t surprised with Kitchens’ meteoric rise in Cleveland, from shifting into offensive coordinator last season to head coach in 2019.

“He did an outstanding job last year when he took over,’’ Saban said. “He’s very innovative from what I saw, with formations and all that type of stuff. But what I was most impressed with was his ability to get his guys to execute. You can have the best play in the world, but if they don’t block the right guys and run the right routes and the quarterback throw the ball to the right place, it’s not really worth anything.’’

Saban invited Kitchens to speak at his coaching clinic at Alabama this summer, where he emphasized the sacrifices it takes to be elite.

“He really did a phenomenal job,’’ Saban said. “He’s got the right stuff and he gets it when it comes to what you have to do to gain the respect of the players in terms of knowledge and the passion and togetherness that you’re trying to create.''

Saban noted that Kitchens’ message meshed with his own philosophy.

“Maybe that’s why I liked it so much,’’ he said. “He talked about people making choices as to how God gave them the ability and ‘Do you want to be average, good, exceptional?’ It’s all about the choices that you make. It’s all about the passion that you have to accomplish whatever the goal is that you have.’’

Gase and Kitchens have kept in touch occasionally while climbing the NFL ranks, with Gase making stops in Detroit, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago and finally his first head coaching opportunity in Miami. Kitchens, meanwhile, had stints in Dallas and Arizona before joining the Browns last year.

“Obviously when you’re not on the same team it’s a little harder to stay in touch,'' Gase said. "I know when I heard about all of that stuff that happened in Arizona when he took a helicopter to the hospital (after a life-threatening aortic aneurysm in 2013), all of that stuff, that was scary. I remember texting Freddie to see if he was all right and it was same old Freddie. No panic.’’

He said they catch back up at the NFL combine every year, and “then we’re both off with our own teams.”

On Monday night, they’ll meet up on national television, a clash of 0-1 teams who need a victory to keep their promising seasons on track. Baker Mayfield won’t be dueling Sam Darnold, who’s out with mononucleosis. Yet storylines abound, with former Browns interim coach Gregg Williams running Gase’s defense.

The Browns are coming off a 43-13 shellacking by the Titans that shook the cage of this much-hyped team, and the Jets lost 17-16 at home to the Bills, blowing a 16-0 halftime lead. The New York Daily News on Wednesday called for Gase, after only one game as Jets head coach, to grow up and stop throwing his players under the bus. The Browns committed 18 penalties against the Titans — most by the team in 68 years — and are facing multiple fines this week.

“We’re in Week 2,’’ said Gase. “I don’t know if we’re in the ‘great magnitude’ stage yet. But anytime you’re on Monday night you’re the only game on. There’s a lot of really good young players in this game, and it’s one of those games where you’re just glad you’re going to be a part of it.’’

With two head coaches who remember how far they’ve come for this moment.