Kirby Smart shares hilarious story from Alabama staff meetings with Lane Kiffin
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Kirby Smart and Lane Kiffin will share the same field on Saturday afternoon in Athens, where Smart’s 9th-ranked Georgia Bulldogs will clash with Kiffin’s 5th-ranked Ole Miss Rebels in a 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff on ABC.
It will be 1 of the top games to watch in Week 8, but once up on a time Smart and Kiffin also shared the same sideline. It was at Alabama and it was a decade ago when the current head coaches of 2 SEC powerhouses were part of an Alabama powerhouse under the legendary Nick Saban.
Right before he began his tenure as head coach at Georgia in 2016, Smart crossed paths with Kiffin in 2014 and 2015, when Smart was at the close of his long run as defensive coordinator in Tuscaloosa and Kiffin was in the middle of his 3-year run as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
Kiffin stayed at Alabama for 1 season longer than Smart, through 2016, and now almost a decade later during Friday’s appearance on The Pat McAfee Show the Georgia head coach was recalling some humorous times with Kiffin in T-Town.
“Speaking of the Saban (coaching) tree, I just walked out of a production meeting with (Kiffin) in there, and I still realized he’s in control of that,” joked Kirby Smart, who then recalled those staff meetings in Tuscaloosa. “Let’s be clear. I sat next to him during staff meetings for a couple of years when we were (at Alabama). I said, ‘Lane, please don’t talk to me during the staff meetings.’ He said, ‘Why are you so worried about talking during staff meetings?’ This guy doesn’t care. That’s why he’s getting back at me now, because of all those butt whippings he used to get (from me.”
Here is the full clip of Smart musing about Kiffin on the eve of their all-important matchup in Athens:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
