Lane Kiffin to leave Alabama before national championship game, to be replaced by Steve Sarkisian

Former USC coach Lane Kiffin was already planning to leave Alabama — after the national championship game. Now he’s running ahead of schedule.

Alabama Coach Nick Saban announced Monday that Kiffin will leave his post as Alabama’s offensive coordinator to focus on his new job as Florida Atlantic’s coach.

Steve Sarkisian, who replaced Kiffin at USC and was fired in 2015 after several alcohol-related incidents, will replace Kiffin for the national championship game against Clemson in Tampa, Fla., on Jan. 9.

Saban, speaking on ESPN’s “College GameDay,” characterized the move as mutual. He said Kiffin and he realized there were too many “distractions” in trying to do both jobs.

“Hey, Lane did the best he could under difficult circumstances,” Saban said. “We certainly wish him well. We both had a meeting yesterday and again this morning that we thought it would be in the best interest and mutually agreed for both parties to move on.”

Kiffin later appeared on “The Paul Finebaum Show” and denied reports that he was dismissed over his showing up late to team meetings and making several negative comments about Alabama to Sports Illustrated.

“I can’t worry about that,” Kiffin said. He said leaving Alabama “was something probably 10 years ago I don’t think I would’ve come up with because I would’ve been like, ‘Just win the game. Just another championship.’ But I had to really think about the best thing for the players.”

Kiffin said that he rewatched Alabama’s offensive performance against Washington and said, “I don’t think we played great.”

He expressed confidence in Sarkisian’s ability to step into the role.

“Sark and I are so similar,” Kiffin said. “We speak the same language, call games the same way.”

Kiffin said he simply thought doing both jobs “would be easier than it was.”

zach.helfand@latimes.com

ALSO

Rams franchise rests on whether Jared Goff can lead the team

NFL coaching changes: Broncos’ Kubiak quits while 49ers’ Kelly and Chargers’ McCoy are fired

Clay Helton switched quarterbacks, and it led USC to an improbable Rose Bowl meeting with Penn State

UPDATES:

1 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with staff reporting.

This article was originally published at 10 a.m.