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| Alabama's new offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin |
Much has been made during the past week over Nick Saban’s
controversial hiring of Lane Kiffin as the University of Alabama’s new
offensive coordinator. The decision has left many Alabama fans scratching their
heads because, let’s face it, they worship Nick Saban, and they want to feel
good about Kiffin’s hiring.
Kiffin has the reputation for being petulant, wishy-washy
and unpredictably offensive. In the past, he’s drawn fire for the controversial
remarks he’s made about other head coaches, opposing players and recruits. He’s
also been fired or “resigned” from several head-coaching jobs, including a
couple of times before he even finished the season.
On the other side of the coin, Kiffin brings an impressive
resume to the Alabama job. Not to mention his past assistant coaching jobs,
Kiffin, who isn’t even 40 years old yet, has already served as the head coach
for the Oakland Raiders, Tennessee and Southern Cal. There aren’t many
franchises or programs with higher profiles than those three, and if those
organizations hired Kiffin, he’s not your average coach, he’s one of the best
in the country.
Also, some coaches make better assistant coaches than head
coaches. If you don’t think so, consider Mike Dubose. Dubose had the reputation
for being one of the finest defensive assistant coaches in the nation, but
things quickly fell apart for Dubose when he landed the head-coaching job at
Alabama. Kiffin may be of the same mold, and, if so, he has the potential to
thrive under Saban at Alabama.
You also have to wonder if Kiffin’s bad boy reputation is
due to the hyper-intense media coverage in Los Angeles and Knoxville. In this
day and age, the national sporting media tends to run wild with any off color
comment made by a coach, especially if it’s a slow news day in a big city like
Los Angeles. Under Saban, Kiffin won’t likely have to worry about this. Saban
is well known for keeping his players and coaches tightlipped and out of the
media spotlight.
Saban’s also famous for his intense focus on recruiting,
which is the lifeblood of any successful college football program. With an eye
to how Kiffin would play on the recruiting trail, Saban may figure that
Kiffin’s youth may be just the thing to help Alabama continue to land the nation’s
best talent.
Kiffin also has the reputation for being perhaps the best
recruiter of them all when it comes to the state of Florida, a perennial hot
bed of high school talent. With Kiffin on staff, Alabama may stand to suck away
the Sunshine State’s best recruits and keep them out of the hands of SEC rival
Florida and defending national champion, Florida State.
When it’s all said and done, Saban’s no idiot. He’s one of
the most successful (and powerful) coaches in the history of college football,
and you’ve got to figure that if he pulled the trigger to hire Kiffin, then he
had to have a good reason. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that if Kiffin is
on Alabama’s coaching staff when Saban moves on, Kiffin will definitely be in
the discussion to replace him.
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The NFL playoffs will enter the Conference Championship
Round this weekend with four teams still in the hunt for a Super Bowl win – the
New England Patriots, the Denver Broncos, the San Francisco 49ers and the
Seattle Seahawks.
Both conference championship games will be played on Sunday
as the Patriots and the Broncos square off for the AFC title, and the 49ers
face Seattle for the NFC crown. The New England-Denver game will kick off at 2
p.m. in Denver and will be televised on CBS. The San Francisco-Seattle game
will begin at 5:30 p.m. in Seattle and will be televised on FOX.
Home field advantage is huge in the NFL playoffs, and I look
for both of the home teams to win this coming Sunday. Both games should be good
and close, but I look for Denver and Seattle to both come out ahead.
Predictions last week: 4-0. So far this season: 182-82.
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