Kirby Smart recalls how his first interview with Nick Saban got LSU staff ‘cussed out'

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LSUTIGERWIRE - Kirby Smart recalls how his first interview with Nick Saban got entire LSU staff ‘cussed out’


Tyler Nettuno
Sat, February 3, 2024 at 6:49 PM CST·2 min read

Kriby Smart “I go on the interview, and I’m young and unassuming, and there are all these stories out there that if Miss Terry [Saban’s wife] invites you to the house for dinner, she had to give you the OK. And if you didn’t get the OK, then you weren’t going to get the job.”

Lance Thompson was leaving LSU to take the UCF defensive coordinator’s job. Smart remembers Thompson, who worked under Saban two different times, telling Smart in passing: “Working for Nick is like dog years. Every year feels like seven.”

It was at that point that Smart apparently got too confident and let Thompson’s comment slip.


“I was comfortable and feeling good about the way it was going, and I just say, ‘I don’t get it. People say working here is like dog years.’ I don’t know why in the hell I said that. Just dumb,” Smart said. “Think about it. Why would you ever say something like that to an employer you’re trying to get a job with? But I did. I guess I wasn’t overwhelmed or intimidated. I was too young to know any better.”

The next morning, Smart got a call from Muschamp after that day’s LSU staff meeting. Muschamp told Smart that an irate Saban barked to everybody in the staff room: “Which one of you dumb***** said it’s like dog years working for me? We’re trying to hire the guy, and you tell him that?”

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