Senior Bowl executive director Phil Savage is a former NFL assistant coach, scouting director and general manager. He wrote a book that will soon be released entitled “4th & Goal Every Day.” In this book, he gets into some juicy stuff, including the inside scoop on what happened to spark the sideline blowup between Nick Saban and Lane Kiffen last September.
In case you don’t remember, here’s Nick Saban blowing his top during Alabama’s game against Western Kentucky.
Savage detailed the reason for this blowup in his book, which was previewed by Creg Stephenson of AL.com.
“Kiffin said into his headset ‘dumb players make dumb plays,’ which all the Crimson Tide coaches heard. Saban snapped back with ‘no, dumb offensive coordinators call dumb plays.’ There were probably a few expletives left out.”
It was hardly surprising that Kiffin bounced before the end of last season for a job with Florida Atlantic. He and Saban famously clashed on a number of occasions, and Kiffin has a history of ticking people off.
The explanation of this particular Saban chew-out session makes perfect sense. And we can’t help but love Saban for it.