In the annals of the tumultuous coaching marriage between Lane Kiffin and Nick Saban, is this: The blow up of all Saban blow ups.
It led to this epic Saban quote.
Saban on his interaction with Kiffin during the game: "There were no arguments. Those are called ass-chewings."
— Cecil Hurt (@CecilHurt) September 10, 2016
But we didn’t get much more context than that for the famous moment of feud — until now. Phil Savage, the executive director of the Senior Bowl, is writing a book. In it he finally sheds some light on just what went into the ass chewing that day.
Savage writes that 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.
We know that this wasn’t the only time the two had a tiff.
One source said "a 1000 paper cuts" led to Saban's decision to move on. Accumulation. Final straw may have been his focus in meetings Sunday
— Travis Haney (@travhaney) January 2, 2017
We also know that Alabama’s defensive players goaded Saban on in practice by performing well with the knowledge that disrupting the offense would cause Saban to yell at Kiffin.
The moral of the story here is everyone loved to be a fly on the wall when Saban yelled at Kiffin. It’s even better when we know why.