Nick Saban says Lane Kiffin may be about to take one of his most infamous records. Speaking on The Pat McAfee Show, Saban joked that Kiffin’s return to Ole Miss could top even the hostile welcome he got at LSU.

“One record I’m going to relinquish, which I’m a little bit disappointed about, is when I went back to LSU after coming to Alabama, after being at Miami. They hung me in effigy, burned me in effigy,” Nick Saban said. “The whole student section was there chanting, ‘F— you, Nick,’ when I walked out on the field with two hours to go before the game, which usually there’s nobody there.”

That memory still stands out because Saban had already won big at LSU before leaving for Miami and then Alabama. When he came back in 2008, the crowd made the night feel personal, loud, and ugly. Saban actually warned his Alabama players back then about how brutal the environment was going to be before they even got off the team bus. He told them straight up that they were about to walk into the most unbelievable circumstance they had ever gotten themselves into.

For nearly twenty years, Saban held the crown for the most hated return in SEC history. But now, he says Lane Kiffin’s upcoming trip back to Ole Miss is going to make his own experience look like a walk in the park. Saban joked that Kiffin’s reception in Oxford will be so severe that people won’t even remember the LSU fans being mad at Bama. The reason Ole Miss fans are so incredibly furious comes down to bad timing and a sense of ultimate betrayal.

“Lane is going to break that [Saban’s LSU reception] record when he goes back to Ole Miss this year,” the seven-time national championship-winning coach added. “That will be blown away. Nobody will even remember that [how the LSU fanbase treated him] ever because this will be such a big thing.”

Kiffin’s case has its own edge. He just led Ole Miss to an 11-1 regular season and a College Football Playoff berth, then left for LSU only 48 hours later. That timing made the move feel like a breakup, not a business decision. Unlike Saban, Kiffin actually jumped directly from one active SEC school to another without a break, so the fans feel completely blindsided.

Saban apparently reached out to Kiffin with some genuine advice, telling him to give him a call before the big game. Saban wants to give him some literal coaching points on how to mentally survive walking into an environment that wants to tear him apart.

We don’t have to wait long for this drama to unfold, as Lane Kiffin will lead his new LSU squad into Ole Miss on September 19, 2026. Since it’s taking place in Week 3, both teams will be going at each other with their healthiest and most stacked rosters.

Even though Kiffin has been a wizard in the transfer portal, clinching the No. 1 transfer portal ranking this year, Saban warned that winning instantly won’t be easy. He mentioned that while the top-tier talent is definitely there, it will take time for the players to settle in, as all good things do.

Regardless, that September matchup is projected to be one of the most chaotic regular-season games in college football history, and Nick Saban claims he wouldn’t miss it for the world.