Published September 2, 2026 04:21 PM

Nick Saban coached the Dolphins from 2005 through 2006. Lane Kiffin coached the Raiders from 2007 until early in the 2008 season. In 2014, Saban hired Kiffin.

And it ended roughly as well for Kiffin in Tuscaloosa as it ended for him in Oakland.

Vanity Fair has published an excerpt of John Talty’s new book about Kiffin — Lane Being Lane: The Story of Lane Kiffin, College Football’s Agent of Chaos — and it is, above all else, an entertaining reflection on Lane’s time with the ultimate my-way-or-the-highway head coach.

Kiffin, per the book, had a habit of on-campus carousing: “‘You’ve got to keep Lane away from the girls that are in college,’ Saban said, according to one former coach. ‘Just keep him away from the sorority girls. Make sure they’ve graduated college or are working a job.’”

Kiffin reportedly had an alias that he used when chasing co-eds. It was, per the book, “Joey Freshwater.”

While the off-field escapades didn’t enhance their relationship, Saban decided to move on from Kiffin after watching the film of Alabama’s 24-7 win over Washington, which earned a berth in the 2016 national championship.

“As Saban spent hours rewatching the game film, what he saw disturbed him,” Talty writes. “Kiffin had called plays the team hadn’t practiced. It wasn’t the first time he had done that — it was almost like a party trick for Kiffin to draw something up during a game — but the savant playmaker was off his game.”

Kiffin had taken the head-coaching job at Florida Atlantic, but he was staying at Alabama through the postseason. Saban decided to pull the plug on that approach, referring to Kiffin with a colorful and profane three-syllable term. From the book: “‘How do we score twenty-four points against Washington when they suck?’ Saban told a confidant. ‘He’s obviously thinking about FAU and he’s not thinking about us.’”

As Kiffin thinks about his new job at LSU, where Saban coached before heading to the NFL, Talty’s book looks to contain plenty of nuggets that could become fodder for a variety of probing questions for Kiffin — questions that could elicit some memorable answers.

Upcoming

AFC East

New book looks at Lane Kiffin's rocky tenure with Nick Saban

Discussion