He also mentioned speaking with Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, which he did with a smile, and finally explained how he decided to take the job in Baton Rouge.
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The decision was made with the support of a pair of Kiffin’s mentors: current Las Vegas Raiders head coach Pete Carroll, who told Lane that his father would want him to take the job, and another, more surprising mentor was someone Kiffin ended things with on bad terms: Nick Saban.
Clearly, the couple’s bad blood has since disappeared. When asked what his mentors shared with him that helped him make his decision, Kiffin responded with humor.
“Coach Saban coached somewhere else in this conference, so I can’t really say exactly what he said,” Kiffin joked, “I’ll say I think the world of Coach Saban and I respect him, so there’s a reason I’m here.”
This is a far cry from how things ended between Kiffin and Saban at Alabama, which included public criticism from Kiffin over his three years on Saban’s staff and culminated in Kiffin’s abrupt dismissal from the position. He already had a new job as head coach at Florida Atlantic University, making it difficult for him to balance the two roles. Saban’s statements to the media seemed tame, but according to ESPN, things had been incredibly tense between him and Kiffin for some time.
All of that now seems like a thing of the past, which shows how much Kiffin has grown since then. He has always had a football mentality; From all appearances, it seems that his maturity has been what has prevented him from achieving true success. Based on his improved relationships with people like Kiffin, along with his apparent genuine regret over his abrupt departure from Oxford, it seems Kiffin has managed to remedy that last problem.
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That decision to leave Ole Miss is another reason Tigers fans should be excited. Kiffin could have stayed at Oxford, become the winningest coach in school history and retired with the field named after him. But Kiffin is not complacent. He wants to win the big prize and knows he has a chance to do so at LSU.
This article originally appeared on LSU Wire: How Nick Saban influenced Lane Kiffin to be LSU’s head football coach