Nick Saban thinks Lane Kiffin is ‘absolutely’ prepared to be a head coach

It’s fair to say that Lane Kiffin’s collegiate head coaching career hasn’t been terribly successful, but with the Alabama offensive coordinator possibly set to get another chance, he has support from his current boss.

Nick Saban thinks that Kiffin is “absolutely” ready to be a collegiate head coach again, praising him for his handling of the Crimson Tide offense and his role in tailoring things based on the talents of his quarterbacks.

“I think he has proven when he was a head coach he had a reasonably good amount of success — much more than I think he gets credit for,” Saban said Friday, via Rainer Sabin of AL.com. “And he’s done a phenomenal job in the three years that he has been with us relative to taking the players that we had and actually molding a system, especially for the quarterback to be successful in and I think those are signs of tremendous maturity as a coach who is just not committed to a system but is committed to doing the things he has to do to help players be successful.

“You know a lot of guys are committed to a system and then they need to have the players that can fit into that system to make that system work. But I think it is a true sign of a really good coach who can take the players that he has and adapt the system to make it work for them.”

Kiffin is said to be under consideration for at least one pretty good job. It’s a sign of how much he’s rebuilt his reputation at Alabama that he’s been linked to openings all over the place, and now he has a pretty strong endorsement from one of the most prominent coaches in college football.