Lane Kiffin would ‘love’ to return as Alabama’s OC
Lane Kiffin doesn’t sound like a man who has any plans to move on from his current job.
The Alabama offensive coordinator said Sunday that he’d love to be back for a third season with the Crimson Tide. Alabama plays Michigan State on Thursday in the Cotton Bowl, a semifinal of the College Football Playoff.
“I’d love to be back,” the former Tennessee and USC coach said via ESPN. “We’ll have a new set of challenges with a third year of a new quarterback and replacing a Heisman Trophy winner, just as we did with a Biletnikoff winner the year before, and some great returning players to work with. I’d be real excited about that.”
If Kiffin didn’t return to the Tide for some reason, it’d likely be for an NFL job. All but Ball State and Texas State have head coaches in the FBS ranks and it’s quite farfetched that he’d leave Alabama for a coordinator job with another school.
Kiffin’s offense has relied more and more on Derrick Henry, the 2015 Heisman Trophy winner, over the second half of the season. Henry had 46 carries in a regular-season ending win over Auburn and 44 carries against Florida in the SEC Championship Game.
“I never thought I’d see somebody carry the ball 90 times in a seven-day span,” Kiffin said during his Cotton Bowl media availability on Sunday. “But somehow he just continues to get stronger, and that goes back to how he works, the way that he practices, the way that we’re in the sprints in the practice. And he’s not worried about anything else except for getting himself better.”
The ESPN report also said, citing a source, that the relationship between Kiffin and head coach Nick Saban “is much better than has been portrayed.”
Alabama is the only team back in the College Football Playoff for a second season. The Tide lost in the Sugar Bowl to Ohio State at the end of the 2014 season. Henry got 13 carries in the 42-35 loss while T.J. Yeldon got 10. It’s not much of a stretch to think that Henry will get more than 26 carries against Michigan State on Thursday.
For more Alabama news, visit TideSports.com.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
