Lane Kiffin’s Happiness In Tuscaloosa Tempered By Absence Of Family


Lane Kiffin enjoyed his three seasons in Tuscaloosa on the field, but having his family in California made the time not as fun away from it.


Lane Kiffin spent three seasons working under Nick Saban as the Alabama offensive coordinator, helping the Crimson Tide win three SEC titles and a College Football Playoff National Championship.

With all the success on the field, there was something missing for Kiffin away from it: his family.

“I had a unique situation where, for the first time, my family didn’t come with me — my kids and wife,” Kiffin said on The Dan Le Batard Show. “That made it, outside of the football part, not as much fun, because they were across the country.”

Kiffin, who is now the head coach at Florida Atlantic, spent most of his time in Tuscaloosa diving into restoring his tarnished reputation as a coach and person after head coaching stints at the Oakland Raiders, Tennessee, and USC. The Raiders and Trojans fired him, while he left Knoxville after just one season for the USC job.

Asked if he enjoyed his time in Tuscaloosa, Kiffin responded, “Yes and no,” before explaining that “it would have been more enjoyable had they come and I continued a normal lifestyle, versus just going there to dive into football and learn from Coach Saban and win a bunch of games and have a blast on the field like we did.”

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