Lane Kiffin won't miss drawing Nick Saban's ire over offensive plans

— -- ATLANTA -- Lane Kiffin will take a lot of positive lessons with him as he prepares to move on from his role as offensive coordinator at Alabama to become the head coach at Florida Atlantic.

But one thing he wouldn't mind leaving behind is the memory of drawing the ire of Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban.

"I don't recall a happy moment," Kiffin said, when asked to remember a pleasant interaction with Saban over offensive game plans. "I just recall the ass-chewings."

He added: "I won't take that part of the process with me, though."

Kiffin had a famously tense interaction with Saban earlier this season that was caught on camera. When Saban was asked about it after that game, he responded, "There are no arguments. Those are called ass-chewings."

But while the Saban-Kiffin relationship had its fair share of fireworks, it also has yielded remarkable success with three straight SEC titles, three consecutive trips to the College Football Playoff and a slew of school records.

This season, Kiffin helped tutor true freshman quarterback Jalen Hurts to more than 30 total touchdowns and an undefeated record. Alabama will play Washington in a CFP semifinal on Saturday.

Two weeks ago, Kiffin, 41, was named the next head coach at Florida Atlantic. Counting stints with USC, Tennessee and the Oakland Raiders, it's the fourth head-coaching opportunity for the son of longtime defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin.

Lane Kiffin, who was fired by USC five games into the 2013 season, reiterated that he didn't seek out an opportunity to become a head coach again, fighting against the narrative that Florida Atlantic was his best option.

"It seemed like, 'OK, he just took a head job because he wanted to be a head coach or it wasn't working at Alabama,'" Kiffin said. "... I don't know where that comes from, out there that the Alabama thing was over and the Saban-Kiffin marriage kind of ran its course.

"It was three years. Coach has been great to me. ... And we did have a great three years -- three straight SEC championships and potential of two national championships and a Heisman Trophy winner [ Derrick Henry in 2015]. So it was really great. And it really was about the job [at FAU]. It was about that specific job."

Kiffin said that the No. 1 thing he'll take away from his time under Saban is the underpinnings of his so-called "process."

"When you talk about the process, it really is about how Coach never changes," Kiffin said. "Every day is the same. ... Coach goes over the practice today and says each five minutes what we're doing in practice. You don't have to write it down because it's the exact same as every Wednesday's practice for three years."