Nick Saban and Lane Kiffin competed against one another for years when the latter was not working under the former, and an incredible story that AJ McCarron shared recently shows just how deep the rivalry ran.
In an episode of his new podcast “The Dynasty” that was released on Wednesday, McCarron recalled a funny experience he had when he was being recruited before the start of his college career at Alabama in 2009. McCarron said he was sitting at home in Mobile, Ala., when he heard a knock on his window.
McCarron was surprised to see that Kiffin, who was the head coach at Tennessee at the time, and Kiffin’s staff had paid the quarterback a visit. McCarron had a phone call with Saban about an hour later and told the seven-time national champion that he had just met with Kiffin and company.
Saban was not happy, mostly because he had told Jeremy Pruitt — the director of player development with Alabama at the time — to park outside of McCarron’s house for a couple of days and make sure Tennessee assistant Lance Thompson did not pay McCarron a visit. Thompson has previously been an assistant at Alabama and was assigned to the area where McCarron lived, which is why Saban was concerned.
“Coach Saban was like, ‘Hey I want you to go down, AJ had said Tennessee was starting to hit him up. Lance is from down there, so go down, watch (McCarron’s) house. I want to let us know if Lance is trying to back door us and steal him away,'” McCarron says Saban told Pruitt, as transcribed by Nick Kelly of AL.com.
When McCarron spoke with Saban on the phone, Saban told McCarron that the coach “told Pruitt’s a– to get down there and watch your house.” Saban then called Pruitt to find out what happened.
Pruitt claimed he was sitting in front of McCarron’s house, to which Saban replied “no the hell you’re not.” McCarron says Pruitt then knocked on the door of the house that he thought was McCarron’s and a “little old lady” answered.
It turned out that Pruitt was parked in front of the wrong house. McCarron lived several houses down, so Kiffin and Tennessee’s staff were able to sneak in and out of McCarron’s house unnoticed.
Ultimately, Pruitt’s surveillance failure did not prove costly. McCarron still enrolled at Alabama and won two national titles as the starting quarterback for the Crimson Tide.
With all the shots Kiffin has taken at Saban over the years, we are surprised the McCarron recruiting story has never come up.
