Nick Saban gets fiery on Lane Kiffin debate as ‘GameDay’ talks CAA, Jimmy Sexton potential conflict
Lane Kiffin canceled his appearance Saturday on ESPN’s “College GameDay.”
That didn’t stop the popular college football pregame show’s panel from talking about the circumstances surrounding Kiffin leaving Ole Miss for LSU.
A question of ethics has been a sticking point. Nick Saban, who is an analyst on the show, helped guide Kiffin, a former assistant, in his decision.
The other issue is Saban, Rece Davis and Desmond Howard all hold representation by Creative Artists Agency, which is Jimmy Sexton’s agency. Sexton is the agent for both Kiffin and Saban.
“Several of us who are represented by agents at CAA, that’s not unusual,” Davis said on “GameDay.” “CAA represents a lot of different things.”
Earlier this week, Davis called it “preposterous” that anyone, especially CAA super agent Jimmy Sexton, has any influence on “College GameDay” personalities and their opinions.
During Saban’s appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Friday, McAfee said he was looking forward to Kiffin joining “GameDay,” and there would be a lot of “journalism” going on.
The idea was that there were going to be hard-hitting and objective questions asked, despite the perceived conflicts of interest.
Saban laid out what he tells a number of coaches that call to seek his advice, similar to what he told McAfee the day before.
On Saturday, however, Saban said he thought Kiffin was “confused” when it came to LSU and Ole Miss.
“This is a difficult circumstance to be in,” Saban said. “I’ve been in this situation before where you finish the season. You want to stay with your team. You want to coach them, whether it’s in the bowl game or playoff or whatever it is. But you feel like you owe it to yourself and your family to at least look at other opportunities and consider them and see if that is a better situation in the future.
“Based on the way the calendar is, that never fits together correctly.”
Kirk Herbstreit pointed to Bob Chesney staying at James Madison and Jon Sumrall staying at Tulane before moving to their next jobs.
Why couldn’t Kiffin?
“Because those people got together and said this isn’t going to be a problem,” Saban said. “We’re going to let them coach.
“That’s the way I always did it when I had assistant coaches who left. (Former Alabama defensive coordinator and current Georgia coach) Kirby (Smart) left right after we won the SEC Championship, and we’re going to the playoffs.
”I said you can go there and do this. And you can go to the bowl game and here’s when we are going to practice, here’s when I expect you to be here.”
That wasn’t the case when Kiffin left Alabama prior to the national championship for his new job at Florida Atlantic, which Herbstreit pointed out.
“That was a situation where Lane was struggling to handle taking a new job, hire a new staff, recruiting new players at a new place that was Florida Atlantic, and doing his job at (Alabama) the way the players and the rest of the staff thought he should,” Saban said.
“We mutually agreed it would be better for him to just move on. So, it is what it is.”
McAfee jumped in pointing out that Sumrall’s and Chesney’s position, though, they weren’t moving to schools in direct competition with their former schools.
That’s when Saban got animated.
“I think it’s normal for coaches to be paranoid,” he said. “I think it’s normal for administrators to be paranoid. …
“We sat in 2015. Kirby was going to Georgia, (Glenn) Schumann was going with him and Mel Tucker was going with him. So, I’m sitting in the defensive room, getting ready to play in the national championship game against Clemson. They’re recruiting for Georgia. We’re getting ready to play the game, but those guys had professional integrity to the players and to the team that they coached all year for the opportunity for those guys created for them because of the success we had.
“And we went and won the game. And as soon as the game was over, they left. So, you can do it. It’s doable. Everybody’s paranoid about this.”
