Sometimes to go forward, you must go back.

That’s what Lane Kiffin saw from LSU and Alabama last season as the two best offenses from the Southeastern Conference, and arguably the nation, shifted away from uptempo football and took on an approach that reminded the Ole Miss head coach of the way football was played when he was coming up the coaching ranks.

When asked to share his take on the next wave of offensive football in college football during an appearance on FOX Sports’ “Big Noon Kickoff” show, Kiffin said we could see offenses start trending away from tempo ball.

“We go really fast. We have elements still of the pro-style and USC, Alabama, different places, but more a lot more opened up. But, you know, it was interesting last year, if you look at it, two of the best offenses in the country went back when kind of old-school in LSU and Alabama,” Kiffin said on the show.

“You see them not playing with tempo. They both had the best receivers in the country on the roster – compared to everybody else combined probably – so that helped, and (having) Joe and Tua. You saw it go backwards a little bit. I don’t know that it’s going to go that way, but it may. Some things cycle back sometimes.”

Without a doubt, as Kiffin noted, having some of the best players in the nation helped LSU and Alabama field outstanding offenses last fall but it’s interesting to think that we could be moving away from tempo after so many years of fast-paced offense spreading across the college football landscape.