LSU head coach Lane Kiffin is only 51 years old, but he’s already lived five or six coaching lives.

It’s been nearly 20 years since Kiffin was named the head coach of the Oakland Raiders. In the years since, he’s been the head coach at Tennessee, USC, Florida Atlantic, Ole Miss, and now LSU. He also spent three seasons as Nick Saban’s offensive coordinator at Alabama.

Kiffin has ran into created controversy at nearly all of those jobs (FAU is the lone exception).

Peyton Manning helped Lane Kiffin avoid controversy off the bat at Tennessee

While Kiffin eventually created plenty of controversy during his lone season at Tennessee (calling out Urban Meyer, a rental car mishap, recruiting violations, leaving for USC after 14 months), he managed to avoid an early mishap thanks to Vols legend Peyton Manning.

On3’s Chris Low detailed this week on 104.5 The Zone’s 3HL how Peyton texted (or called) Kiffin when he was interviewing for the Tennessee job in late 2008 to make sure he didn’t fire a couple of key behind-the-scenes staff members — Roger Frazier, Allen “Hawk” Sitzler, and Max Parrott.

“He (Kiffin) told me a story about when he was flying in for his interview,” said Low. “He gets a text from Peyton, and this is pretty cool — this tells you that Peyton’s never going to be one who forgets where he came from or who his guys were who took care of him. He gets a text, or maybe it’s a call, and Lane’s like, ‘Oh geez, he’s going to ask me to not fire this guy or to do this or do that.’ And according to Lane, he said the only thing Peyton said was, ‘Hey, do me a favor, take care of my guys: Fraze, Max, and Hawk.’ That was it.”

Classic Peyton. He’s never going to forget where he came from, and he’s always going to make sure to take care of “his guys”.

And also, good on Lane for listening to Peyton. We’ve seen plenty of college football coaches do the opposite in similar situations (such as when Brian Kelly fired longtime LSU strength coach Tommy Moffitt when he took over as the Tigers’ head coach).