Kiffin on protecting Hurts: 'Last time I checked, job was to win games'

He didn't disagree, but Lane Kiffin also didn't apologize Friday for Jalen Hurts' so-called lack of development during his freshman year at Alabama.

The former Crimson Tide offensive coordinator appeared on WJOX-FM's Opening Drive in Birmingham, where he addressed Nick Saban's comment from a day earlier that Hurts was "protected" instead of developed last season.

"Did we protect Hurts? I don't know," Kiffin said. "Last time I checked, the job was to win games. He was SEC offensive player of the year."

Hurts accounted for 36 touchdowns in his first year on campus, and was also named SEC Freshman of the Year for his efforts. But that didn't impress Saban, who said Thursday his coaching staff's reluctance to take the training wheels off Hurts cost his team down the stretch.

"Sometimes later in the year, when people played us in a way that we needed to be able to throw the ball, we may not have been as efficient as we would have liked to have been," Saban said Thursday on the very same station. "That was probably our fault as coaches, because we protected him instead of developing him as a young player."

While on the air Friday, Kiffin also attempted to clear up a remark he made Wednesday (that appeared to start this whole saga), when he said it's not his style to chew out assistants during games like Saban did to him.

"There are a lot of ways to coach and win games," Kiffin said. "What I said was not a shot at coach Saban. That's just not my style."