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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Lane Kiffin Weekly Press Conference
10/19/2020 | Football
<i class="icon-video"></i> Lane Kiffin Press Conference<i class="icon-video"></i> MoMo Sanogo Press Conference<i class="icon-video"></i> Elijah Moore Press Conference
Kiffin Recaps Arkansas Loss
Ole Miss football head coach Lane Kiffin met with the media Monday via Zoom to recap the Rebels' 33-21 road loss at Arkansas and take a peek ahead at this weekend's meeting with Auburn. A transcript of the press conference can be found below.
Opening statement…
"So, recap of the game. Very disappointing game. Really slow start, offensively especially. Screwed up a ton of things ourselves and some freak things happened too. For the first time all year, whether it's in practice, a motion guy gets in the way of a snap on 4th-and-1. Its usually Elijah doing it and he was out. That hadn't happened ever in practice or a game with us this year. Left the ball down there another time with a missed call on communication on 4th-and-1. All in all, seven turnovers, four not-made fourth downs and the roughing the punter. We gave them the ball basically 12 times wherever it was, as opposed to punting the ball or scoring. That's not a very good formula. It's really shocking that we were even in the game, let alone have the ball with three minutes left with a chance to go win it, is really crazy. A lot of that goes to our defense playing well and creating negative plays and them screwing up on offense similar to us at times with the drop passes. Game that you wish you could have back, but you don't. You got to learn from it. They did a great job defensively, played really hard and gave us some problems. They dropped eight every snap basically, and we forced a million throws in there. We had six and it could have been eight. I think that's surprising to all of us with a team that through three games turned the ball over once. Quarterback really hadn't thrown the ball near an interception, just one tip all year and then to do that. I would have never guessed that. Don't think I've been a part of that before, so you got to learn from it. Re-do it. Obviously if he was playing like that, been more patient with the run because how they were playing, they were not going to let us throw the ball to beat them. It is what it is."
On talking with Matt Corral…
"I spoke to him immediately after the game, I think even before I spoke to you guys. Got in there after talking to the team and brought him in. Spoke to him obviously today and yesterday he came in too. It was a bad film. Sometimes you just get bad luck, balls are tipped and things like that. This was just, he played really poorly. They did a great job reading his eyes and he was trying to do no look passes where's he's holding one guy off. The problem is he can't see the other guy while he's doing that. Something that you do every once and a while, especially while you're rolling out. He got away with it the week before, so I think he learned a lot from this. We didn't play well around him. For the first game, we had drops, a number of them. Including significant fourth down. Bad recipe."
On preventing telegraphed passes…
"You got to work on it. At the same time too, you have to get to the next. When did you ever see him check the ball down to the back? I think once. That was their game plan, they just sunk way back there. We had 10 3rd-and-4-plusses and didn't make any. That's unheard of. They did a great job, they said they weren't going to pressure him and play deep and make him check the ball down which we didn't do."
On Matt Corral responding at practice…
"I thought he was good, upbeat. Yesterday I am glad we didn't practice. He was not good yesterday as you would expect. Went through a rough day yesterday and embrace the suck. Yesterday sucked. We got to move forward, and you don't let one game beat you twice."
On changing the offensive approach…
"They pay the defensive coordinators a lot in this conference for reason. You can't just get away with what you're doing. They're going to scheme you up and they did the same thing to Mississippi State, and Kentucky did it to State too, so people will copycat it. You have to run the ball better and work different things in the passing game.
On passing against eight-man coverages…
"You got to run them out of it. There is always a weakness to everything. We don't play very consistent up front and we don't run the ball with consistency. We put two tight ends in the second half, they struggled with that defensively because they're outnumbered, and we were able to run the ball with the second half with that. There's other formations and personnel you can go to help with that. When people do that and play boxes like that, you have to run them out of it otherwise you get long days."
On additional COVID cases…
"We got some more in the last three days, so it's becoming very challenging. As you guys probably did math, we had two starters out last week. This is not easy, especially when for whatever reason it continues to hit us on defense."
On active cases and contact tracing…
"Both. I still don't understand how, if I get it and Adam is around me, I am out for 10 days and Adam's out for 14 and can't test out of it. That's what's really difficult, losing close contacts for 14 days that continue to test negative."
On inconsistency on the offensive line…
"We got to communicate better. There's too many times we don't go to the same guys. There's a guy on block, and two of us go to the same guy. It's really basic stuff that we're struggling with. Especially when you just played a team that played one front the whole day and don't block people on the goal line. It's very frustrating to be this far into the season for that to still be the case."
On Nick Saban testing out and Ole Miss' process with COVID testing…
"That's not the problem, the problem is the contact tracing. Those guys can't test out. So, they continue to test negative, but you can't bring them back for 14 days. That to me is the part that is really frustrating, because schools have different rules. I think some cases School A is going to play a guy, when in that exact same situation School B doesn't and that's really frustrating."
On the defensive performance at Arkansas…
"I think it was a combination of playing better, getting more pressure on the quarterback. Arkansas would tell you in their interviews they left a lot of stuff out there too. They helped us, some dropped passes and some missed assignments and some tipped throws and stuff. I think it was a combination and they would say didn't play their best and we did play better."
On SEC COVID protocols…
"I don't know if I am supposed to discuss that or not, so I probably shouldn't. Basically, we didn't have our masks on enough on the sidelines. Which is challenging because you're trying to communicate with people and you're not used to it. I think I did a much better job, got a different type of mask that is harder to take off instead of just sliding down. Hope I did a better job, don't feeling like losing 200 grand."
On Kinkead Dent and John Rhys Plumlee…
"Well he's the third quarterback, so they don't get a lot of reps. We obviously thought about John. It's easy to sit here and say now, didn't think (Corral) was going to keep throwing interceptions and we're in a one-score, hoping he'd pull out of it and drive us down and win the game. Obviously now you play John, if you knew after three there would be three more. He got a lot of reps today, so we will see."
Opening statement…
"So, recap of the game. Very disappointing game. Really slow start, offensively especially. Screwed up a ton of things ourselves and some freak things happened too. For the first time all year, whether it's in practice, a motion guy gets in the way of a snap on 4th-and-1. Its usually Elijah doing it and he was out. That hadn't happened ever in practice or a game with us this year. Left the ball down there another time with a missed call on communication on 4th-and-1. All in all, seven turnovers, four not-made fourth downs and the roughing the punter. We gave them the ball basically 12 times wherever it was, as opposed to punting the ball or scoring. That's not a very good formula. It's really shocking that we were even in the game, let alone have the ball with three minutes left with a chance to go win it, is really crazy. A lot of that goes to our defense playing well and creating negative plays and them screwing up on offense similar to us at times with the drop passes. Game that you wish you could have back, but you don't. You got to learn from it. They did a great job defensively, played really hard and gave us some problems. They dropped eight every snap basically, and we forced a million throws in there. We had six and it could have been eight. I think that's surprising to all of us with a team that through three games turned the ball over once. Quarterback really hadn't thrown the ball near an interception, just one tip all year and then to do that. I would have never guessed that. Don't think I've been a part of that before, so you got to learn from it. Re-do it. Obviously if he was playing like that, been more patient with the run because how they were playing, they were not going to let us throw the ball to beat them. It is what it is."
On talking with Matt Corral…
"I spoke to him immediately after the game, I think even before I spoke to you guys. Got in there after talking to the team and brought him in. Spoke to him obviously today and yesterday he came in too. It was a bad film. Sometimes you just get bad luck, balls are tipped and things like that. This was just, he played really poorly. They did a great job reading his eyes and he was trying to do no look passes where's he's holding one guy off. The problem is he can't see the other guy while he's doing that. Something that you do every once and a while, especially while you're rolling out. He got away with it the week before, so I think he learned a lot from this. We didn't play well around him. For the first game, we had drops, a number of them. Including significant fourth down. Bad recipe."
On preventing telegraphed passes…
"You got to work on it. At the same time too, you have to get to the next. When did you ever see him check the ball down to the back? I think once. That was their game plan, they just sunk way back there. We had 10 3rd-and-4-plusses and didn't make any. That's unheard of. They did a great job, they said they weren't going to pressure him and play deep and make him check the ball down which we didn't do."
On Matt Corral responding at practice…
"I thought he was good, upbeat. Yesterday I am glad we didn't practice. He was not good yesterday as you would expect. Went through a rough day yesterday and embrace the suck. Yesterday sucked. We got to move forward, and you don't let one game beat you twice."
On changing the offensive approach…
"They pay the defensive coordinators a lot in this conference for reason. You can't just get away with what you're doing. They're going to scheme you up and they did the same thing to Mississippi State, and Kentucky did it to State too, so people will copycat it. You have to run the ball better and work different things in the passing game.
On passing against eight-man coverages…
"You got to run them out of it. There is always a weakness to everything. We don't play very consistent up front and we don't run the ball with consistency. We put two tight ends in the second half, they struggled with that defensively because they're outnumbered, and we were able to run the ball with the second half with that. There's other formations and personnel you can go to help with that. When people do that and play boxes like that, you have to run them out of it otherwise you get long days."
On additional COVID cases…
"We got some more in the last three days, so it's becoming very challenging. As you guys probably did math, we had two starters out last week. This is not easy, especially when for whatever reason it continues to hit us on defense."
On active cases and contact tracing…
"Both. I still don't understand how, if I get it and Adam is around me, I am out for 10 days and Adam's out for 14 and can't test out of it. That's what's really difficult, losing close contacts for 14 days that continue to test negative."
On inconsistency on the offensive line…
"We got to communicate better. There's too many times we don't go to the same guys. There's a guy on block, and two of us go to the same guy. It's really basic stuff that we're struggling with. Especially when you just played a team that played one front the whole day and don't block people on the goal line. It's very frustrating to be this far into the season for that to still be the case."
On Nick Saban testing out and Ole Miss' process with COVID testing…
"That's not the problem, the problem is the contact tracing. Those guys can't test out. So, they continue to test negative, but you can't bring them back for 14 days. That to me is the part that is really frustrating, because schools have different rules. I think some cases School A is going to play a guy, when in that exact same situation School B doesn't and that's really frustrating."
On the defensive performance at Arkansas…
"I think it was a combination of playing better, getting more pressure on the quarterback. Arkansas would tell you in their interviews they left a lot of stuff out there too. They helped us, some dropped passes and some missed assignments and some tipped throws and stuff. I think it was a combination and they would say didn't play their best and we did play better."
On SEC COVID protocols…
"I don't know if I am supposed to discuss that or not, so I probably shouldn't. Basically, we didn't have our masks on enough on the sidelines. Which is challenging because you're trying to communicate with people and you're not used to it. I think I did a much better job, got a different type of mask that is harder to take off instead of just sliding down. Hope I did a better job, don't feeling like losing 200 grand."
On Kinkead Dent and John Rhys Plumlee…
"Well he's the third quarterback, so they don't get a lot of reps. We obviously thought about John. It's easy to sit here and say now, didn't think (Corral) was going to keep throwing interceptions and we're in a one-score, hoping he'd pull out of it and drive us down and win the game. Obviously now you play John, if you knew after three there would be three more. He got a lot of reps today, so we will see."
Players Mentioned
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