You can make fun of him, wag your finger at him, roll your eyes when he does something stupid, and that’s all good and well with Lane Kiffin. He understands. The current Alabama offensive coordinator and former boy wonder, he gets it all.

Kiffin knows not everyone likes him, Heck, for that matter, he knows the list people who like him is probably so short he could jot all the names on the back of a cocktail napkin. And Kiffin knows his cocktail napkins.

But for all the times he’s screwed up in his 19 years – yes, 19 amazingly fast years – as a football coach, he also deserves his props for what he did in helping win a national title this year. During his two years in Tuscaloosa, the Tide offense has scored points at a record pace and had the media relations people rewriting the school’s records books practically every week.

And he saved his best for last Monday night, calling a great game in Alabama’s 45-40 victory over Clemson in the national championship game. Bama scored a whopping 45 points, and they needed every one of them.

Kudos to Lane. He’s 40 years old now, also hard to believe, and he’s found a comfort level working for Nick Saban. He’s a different man now, and a different coach. Over his time in Tuscaloosa, this has happened:

  • He had learned to be patient
  • He made a star out of O.J. Howard
  • He made Jake Coker feel confident enough to win
  • He’s grown up himself
  • He still can’t catch the bus

Let’s look more closely:

Learning to be patient: Kiffin’s persona as a play-caller has long been that he coaches with his hair on fire. Everything is fast, everything is risky, everything is off the wall and often drawn up in the sand. Not this year. When it became obvious that the Alabama offensive line was really good and RB Derrick Henry was flat-out great, Kiffin leaned that it’s not a bad thing to just keep handing the ball to No. 2. All Henry did was shatter the most hallowed of SEC rushing records and win a Heisman Trophy. And that patience paid off in the title game, too. Kiffin knew he had plays in the game plan that were going to break wide open – and he practically gives them away on the sidelines some games with his antics– but he waited for the right time to strike. He fooled Clemson’s defense over and over in rolling up 473 yards – with no turnovers.

Ten years later, from his time as offensive coordinator at USC when he lost the 2005 title game to Texas, Kiffin finally got his ring.

“I’ve been waiting ten years and seven days…RTR,” he tweeted prior to the game.

“It just hit me earlier today how long it had been and telling our players you don’t know when you’re going to get another,” Kiffin said afterward. “You just always think you’re in a dynasty, we’ll be there next year or the year after, you don’t know if you’ll ever get one. It had been 10 years since the last one and I felt like I screwed up the last one in the game so much.”

Making Howard a star: With Henry in the backfield and wide receivers Calvin Ridley and ArDarius Stewart huge threats, Kiffin knew he had a secret weapon against Clemson. Especially after injuries forced the Tigers to start moving some pieces around in the secondary, Kiffin new that Alabama TE O.J. Howard had the potential to make some big plays.

He made a bunch, He had three catches that each  broke for more than 50 yards. He scored two touchdowns and finished with 208 yards on just five catches. Considering he had only 394 yards in receptions coming into the game and only one play over 25 yards, this was shockingly amazing.

“We just felt we would save him for this game,” Kiffin joked after the game. “We didn’t want to wear him out in the first 14 games. He didn’t complain one time about the amount of touches he got, and then he made some big-time plays today.

Getting the most out of Coker: The best thing about QB Jake Coker playing so well down the stretch for Alabama is that he needed be coached properly, both physically and mentally, and Kiffin did that. He’s often cast as a play-calling genius, but he also needed to put in the work with Coker to make him better, and he did that. Coker was fabulous the last two months of the season. He struggled a bit early in the title game, then found his way. Kiffin helped

“The things he’s coached me (through) are really my fault, like when I get sacked,” Coker said. “He’s coached me up. He’s got guys open for me, and I screw up sometimes, and that’s on me.

“I’ll be honest,” Coker told Fox Sports of his relationship with Kiffin. “We didn’t always get along. After that Ole Miss game, (Kiffin said) we’ve got to forget about everything and just work. He’s a West Coast guy. I’m from South Alabama. We’re a little bit different in the ways we think, but eventually we put it together, but I love the guy. He has done so much for me. We came to an understanding. It’s become a real special thing as this season’s gone on. I can’t tell you how much he’s helped me and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate him.”

And for it all, they both now have their championship rings. They couldn’t have done it without each other.

Kiffin, at long last the grown-up: Listen to what Alabama WR Richard Mullaney says of Kiffin:  “He’s just so calm out there. Everything is so positive. He’s a funny dude. He’s never down. He’s always encouraging. If something goes wrong, he’ll take the blame. It’s been great.”

Calm, positive, funny, encouraging, taking blame. Those words haven’t been used around Kiffin in the past with his football teams, but they were this year. This offensive group bonded over time, bonded behind Kiffin and Coker, had did their jobs. It was growth worth watching.

He still gets left behind at the end: It was hilarious to hear about Kiffin standing outside the stadium watching all the buses pull away without him. Thankfully it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the night he was fired at the airport by USC and had to watch those buses pull away without him, too.

“First, I get fired on the tarmac, and now I get left behind at the national championship,” Kiffin said while waiting to hitch a ride with his head coach. Defining irony? “Hey, it is what it is.”

Yes, it is what it is, Kiffin is a championship coach now, and it’s been a long journey. There’s still hundreds of games in his future – and where those will be is a story for another day – but for now he can sit back and enjoy.

“I think it’s been a great two years, just to be a part of it,” Kiffin said. “I think now because you appreciate it more. We were so young (at USC), and we were just kids kind of, and then all of a sudden we are winning 34 straight, and this is kind of easy. Sometimes you have to have it taken away, lose, have some rough seasons and then you appreciate this more.”

“To see how (Saban) handles all of the situations, I take notes on it. Maybe I’ll write a book someday.”

It would certainly be a bestseller.