This first appeared in Kevin Scarbinsky’s weekly newsletter. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every Thursday, $5/month or $50/year.

Forget the betting line and the location, the history and the disparity between the coaches and the programs. Lane Kiffin will never have a better chance to beat Nick Saban. Unless Kiffin himself gets in the way. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The Ole Miss coach will bring the more proven quarterbacks, plural, a bigger star at running back and a far superior offense to Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday in the SEC opener for both teams. Saban has major questions at multiple positions after his program’s worst two-game stretch in the regular season since his first year in Tuscaloosa.

The Rebels also have an extremely motivated new defensive coordinator in Pete Golding, who was encouraged to find a new home after an Alabama tenure that was quite good overall but not Kirby Smart-Jeremy Pruitt great.

With all that going for him, the last thing Kiffin should have done this week is play mind games with Saban. So, of course, it’s the first thing he did, and then he doubled and tripled down on his foolishness.

At a rare Sunday press conference, he dropped a bombshell, saying he and his staff believed that Alabama coordinator Kevin Steele had been replaced as defensive signal-caller after the Texas loss by secondary coach Travaris Robinson. Saban quickly and voluntarily shot down that suggestion the next day, but Kiffin persisted, noting that there are personal ties between the staffs that might know and share such inside info.