Saban berating coach in win brought flashbacks for Kiffin

When TV cameras caught Alabama coach Nick Saban tearing into offensive coordinator Brian Daboll during Monday’s college football semifinal, FAU coach Lane Kiffin immediately had flashbacks.

Kiffin, who was once an assistant under Saban, knows all about the experience. It didn’t matter if the Crimson Tide were ahead by four touchdowns. No one was safe from Saban’s public lashings. On Wednesday, Kiffin appeared on the Dan LeBatard Show on ESPN radio to share a few stories about what it’s like to be on Saban’s staff.

“You’re out there and you’re scoring a million points and a million yards, and it’s the last 15 minutes of the game when you’re up 30 but you hand the ball left instead of right, so you get your ass ripped,” a joking Kiffin said during the radio appearance.

Saban’s latest public berating was captured late in Alabama’s win against Clemson. The Crimson Tide were comfortably ahead and well on the way to their third consecutive appearance in the national championship game. Saban got in Daboll’s face because he was unhappy about how the final few minutes were playing out.

“He’s just mad just to get mad because he’s feeling like ‘OK, people are getting comfortable. We’re ahead,’ ” Kiffin said on the show. “It’s just that I don’t know where he gets it from. It’s that, ‘I need to rip somebody.’ I never understood it. I don’t do it. Somebody used to joke they’d say that he’d get a memo in the fourth quarter that the TV cameras show me more than him so he was going to make sure to rip me to humble me.”

Kiffin