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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Lane Kiffin Signing Day Press Conference Transcript
12/16/2020 | Football
Opening Statement…
"When we talk numbers here and things, obviously there's still stuff going on. So discuss guys who we have papers for. We have 23 signees, three junior college kids. A really good part is 16 mid-years, especially as we know we need defensive help. If you watched our games this year, you know that. So, we knew we needed to sign defensive players, especially defensive line and secondary, with a lot of returning linebacker numbers that we have. Of the 13 defensive players so far 11 of those guys are mid-years, which is huge because if we need guys next year, obviously them being here next month, some of them even being here next week for bowl practices will be huge. I think it's a really good class, we've got to remember where we're at with the COVID issues. I've said when that happened with these dead periods, the bigger schools that have been winning over the last few years, I think that that was going to help them. If kids can't go visit places, it's hard to win them over. You can't go in their homes; they can't come see you. I think a lot of times kids are just going to go with what they know or what they've already seen, or who's been playing in major bowl games the last few years. I think our assistant coaches did a really good job utilizing the Zooms and trying to do the best that we could. Kids not coming here, which is one of the strong points here, the gameday environment, the pregame, the town, the university, so just made the most of the situation that we're in. I think with that being said to sign a top-20 class, you have to give a lot of credit to our recruiting people and our assistant coaches."
On recruiting committed players…
"It doesn't mean anything. Until a kid signs it really doesn't mean anything. If they're committed, it tells you who your challenge is, who you're going against. It's why we really don't push for early commitments. Which if you look at us, month or two ago, I'm sure that everybody thought we suck and can't recruit. There's a plan when you've been doing this long enough. We don't care about early commitments, but other guys and a number of our guys that signed today told us a long time ago that they were coming, and we told them not to put it out. It's all a game until they sign."
On M.J. Daniels…
"I think potentially he could play a little bit, definitely special teams, offense, primarily a defensive player. Could play corner, safety, nickel, we've talked about all the spots. Really good player, really good late get. To have those papers this morning while everybody else was watching his press conference was pretty exciting."
On Luke Altmyer…
"I think he's got special talent. I think he's a natural leader. Really good family. Good feet, quick release, good arm angle throws. Just really excited about him. I think you could see some of his leadership in the way he recruited. I think people say what was the turn in recruiting. I think one was on-field performance, by us playing well and showing our players having fun, excitement, the uniforms, the energy. I think the second thing was Luke turning. It became a cool thing to do and he helped recruit these guys too."
On Altmyer challenging Corral…
"I don't think that, but we think he's got a chance to be a really good player. I don't think he's going to beat out Matt. I think Matt's going to come back as the No. 1 quarterback in all of college football. His numbers this year are as good as anybody in the country. I'd take him over anybody, and I love Mac (Jones), but I think this kid's really unique, really special in just his first semester with us on the field."
On mid-year enrollees…
"I don't know that yet. We don't know what bowl we're in, so we don't know the day of that or how far back we start practices. I don't know which ones will be here next week. I just know that as of now we have 16 that will be here in January. They're just going to do basic stuff with us just to get a feel for things. Probably go play service team for us to prepare for the bowl opponent. We won't have enough time to integrate them with our ones and twos because they won't be playing in the bowl game."
On selling playing time to recruit defensive players…
"I just tell them to watch the game. Whenever you are performing not well on one side of the ball, you don't like that, but there's a recruiting side to that too. A kid says, 'Okay I can go there and play quicker.' Luckily that's just the case on defense right now here, and I think these guys saw that. These guys had a lot of choices of places to go, very highly recruited kids and I think they saw a chance to come play early in the SEC at a program that really is a few stops away from being in the top 15 probably."
On recruiting versatile defensive backs…
"It just helps the coordinator. You know he can play a lot of different things. You can disguise things and all of the sudden your nickel is going back to play the middle third or deep half. The better players you can get, the more athletic players you can get, the better. We always even try to find a quarterback who can play defensive backs because you need really good field awareness to play all the different spots."
On Deke Adams' job recruiting defensive linemen…
"He did a really good job. We're still going. Hopefully two more there. A huge need we said defensive backs and D-line, defensive line number one. You guys know better than me, there's been a struggle here the last few years and when we got here, we saw that unfortunately with the lack of depth there. Big need for us and something that was hard for us to address in the first class because we got here so late."
On the defensive back class…
"I've got eight and all eight are mid-years, which is crazy, and it's awesome because you're talking about eight high school kids, not junior college. That's pretty amazing. They'll be in there and that position obviously plays a lot of special teams too which is great."
On saving spots for February/transfer portal…
"We're always flexible. This is challenging because there were a number of kids that wanted to come today that we had to say no to just because of free agency that's coming. It's really like this was signing day and then there's another signing day in February, so how many spots are you going to leave for that, and then you have free agency coming up for the first time in college football history with the one-time transfer. Which, I'm telling you, going through these numbers, these schools aren't going to have very many spots, so this one-time transfer thing is great for kids, but it's not going to be great for them in the end because there's going to be a lot of kids that think they're going somewhere but there's no spots because we're capped now too with this other cap the last couple years. Unfortunately, all these kids think they're going to go somewhere and they're not going to have places to go."
On telling recruits than there is not a spot available for them…
"It's difficult, it happens everywhere. It happens especially when you start the year slow from a recruiting standpoint. Just because, we hadn't been here. Remember, we're signing a lot of these kids we never met in person. It was a strange year, and then when all this energy started happening in the program. Exciting team, and these kids see it. All of a sudden, I wish we had 50 scholarships. Our program's in a much different place, the way that people view our program, specifically parents and recruits compared to 12 months ago. It's like we're at a different school."
On his Twitter activity towards Deion Sanders and Jackson State…
"Well, it said retweet if you didn't lose anybody to Jackson State, so I just hit retweet. That's awesome what he's doing. Really neat, really cool. I walked by the TV on the way to practice (and Sanders was) on ESPN today. I said it before, your hire a head coach, sometimes it helps your football program. Sometimes, you hire a unique football coach and it changes your entire university. It changes the perspective of your university and the amount of energy, how many kids want to go to the school, how many applications come in. So, it's why football has always been the driving forces at schools. I'm sure that's happening there."
On signing placekicker Caden Costa…
"This position's hard to evaluate obviously, for everybody, especially in college. It's not like the NFL where you have all the time with them. So, we end up leaning on people that that's their thing. Chris Sailer or other people that work with the kids and stuff. Those people raved about him. I think that he won in a lot of areas in the kicking camp that they had him at number one in a lot of areas. So, I've always said, if you find the special one, put him on scholarship. Everyone wants to do the walk-on thing and say 'well, don't waste a scholarship' until you're at the end of a game and you lose the game with a wide-right. I bet Ed Orgeron's pretty happy that he's got a kicker on scholarship after Saturday."
On when the incoming recruits will create an impact on the program…
"Well we've never stayed anywhere that long. So, I'm not really sure how that works. That was a joke. I think, yeah, a lot of the times year three, especially with high school kids. I think because of all the transfers that are going to happen you'll see more than ever you're going to be forced to play kids in their first year or so, I think you'll see an impact next year."
On COVID-19 status for Saturday's game…
"We are back. The last guys are tickling in here, yesterday and today. And I think we've been three or four tests in a row and nothing. So, hopefully we can keep that up for the next few days."
"When we talk numbers here and things, obviously there's still stuff going on. So discuss guys who we have papers for. We have 23 signees, three junior college kids. A really good part is 16 mid-years, especially as we know we need defensive help. If you watched our games this year, you know that. So, we knew we needed to sign defensive players, especially defensive line and secondary, with a lot of returning linebacker numbers that we have. Of the 13 defensive players so far 11 of those guys are mid-years, which is huge because if we need guys next year, obviously them being here next month, some of them even being here next week for bowl practices will be huge. I think it's a really good class, we've got to remember where we're at with the COVID issues. I've said when that happened with these dead periods, the bigger schools that have been winning over the last few years, I think that that was going to help them. If kids can't go visit places, it's hard to win them over. You can't go in their homes; they can't come see you. I think a lot of times kids are just going to go with what they know or what they've already seen, or who's been playing in major bowl games the last few years. I think our assistant coaches did a really good job utilizing the Zooms and trying to do the best that we could. Kids not coming here, which is one of the strong points here, the gameday environment, the pregame, the town, the university, so just made the most of the situation that we're in. I think with that being said to sign a top-20 class, you have to give a lot of credit to our recruiting people and our assistant coaches."
On recruiting committed players…
"It doesn't mean anything. Until a kid signs it really doesn't mean anything. If they're committed, it tells you who your challenge is, who you're going against. It's why we really don't push for early commitments. Which if you look at us, month or two ago, I'm sure that everybody thought we suck and can't recruit. There's a plan when you've been doing this long enough. We don't care about early commitments, but other guys and a number of our guys that signed today told us a long time ago that they were coming, and we told them not to put it out. It's all a game until they sign."
On M.J. Daniels…
"I think potentially he could play a little bit, definitely special teams, offense, primarily a defensive player. Could play corner, safety, nickel, we've talked about all the spots. Really good player, really good late get. To have those papers this morning while everybody else was watching his press conference was pretty exciting."
On Luke Altmyer…
"I think he's got special talent. I think he's a natural leader. Really good family. Good feet, quick release, good arm angle throws. Just really excited about him. I think you could see some of his leadership in the way he recruited. I think people say what was the turn in recruiting. I think one was on-field performance, by us playing well and showing our players having fun, excitement, the uniforms, the energy. I think the second thing was Luke turning. It became a cool thing to do and he helped recruit these guys too."
On Altmyer challenging Corral…
"I don't think that, but we think he's got a chance to be a really good player. I don't think he's going to beat out Matt. I think Matt's going to come back as the No. 1 quarterback in all of college football. His numbers this year are as good as anybody in the country. I'd take him over anybody, and I love Mac (Jones), but I think this kid's really unique, really special in just his first semester with us on the field."
On mid-year enrollees…
"I don't know that yet. We don't know what bowl we're in, so we don't know the day of that or how far back we start practices. I don't know which ones will be here next week. I just know that as of now we have 16 that will be here in January. They're just going to do basic stuff with us just to get a feel for things. Probably go play service team for us to prepare for the bowl opponent. We won't have enough time to integrate them with our ones and twos because they won't be playing in the bowl game."
On selling playing time to recruit defensive players…
"I just tell them to watch the game. Whenever you are performing not well on one side of the ball, you don't like that, but there's a recruiting side to that too. A kid says, 'Okay I can go there and play quicker.' Luckily that's just the case on defense right now here, and I think these guys saw that. These guys had a lot of choices of places to go, very highly recruited kids and I think they saw a chance to come play early in the SEC at a program that really is a few stops away from being in the top 15 probably."
On recruiting versatile defensive backs…
"It just helps the coordinator. You know he can play a lot of different things. You can disguise things and all of the sudden your nickel is going back to play the middle third or deep half. The better players you can get, the more athletic players you can get, the better. We always even try to find a quarterback who can play defensive backs because you need really good field awareness to play all the different spots."
On Deke Adams' job recruiting defensive linemen…
"He did a really good job. We're still going. Hopefully two more there. A huge need we said defensive backs and D-line, defensive line number one. You guys know better than me, there's been a struggle here the last few years and when we got here, we saw that unfortunately with the lack of depth there. Big need for us and something that was hard for us to address in the first class because we got here so late."
On the defensive back class…
"I've got eight and all eight are mid-years, which is crazy, and it's awesome because you're talking about eight high school kids, not junior college. That's pretty amazing. They'll be in there and that position obviously plays a lot of special teams too which is great."
On saving spots for February/transfer portal…
"We're always flexible. This is challenging because there were a number of kids that wanted to come today that we had to say no to just because of free agency that's coming. It's really like this was signing day and then there's another signing day in February, so how many spots are you going to leave for that, and then you have free agency coming up for the first time in college football history with the one-time transfer. Which, I'm telling you, going through these numbers, these schools aren't going to have very many spots, so this one-time transfer thing is great for kids, but it's not going to be great for them in the end because there's going to be a lot of kids that think they're going somewhere but there's no spots because we're capped now too with this other cap the last couple years. Unfortunately, all these kids think they're going to go somewhere and they're not going to have places to go."
On telling recruits than there is not a spot available for them…
"It's difficult, it happens everywhere. It happens especially when you start the year slow from a recruiting standpoint. Just because, we hadn't been here. Remember, we're signing a lot of these kids we never met in person. It was a strange year, and then when all this energy started happening in the program. Exciting team, and these kids see it. All of a sudden, I wish we had 50 scholarships. Our program's in a much different place, the way that people view our program, specifically parents and recruits compared to 12 months ago. It's like we're at a different school."
On his Twitter activity towards Deion Sanders and Jackson State…
"Well, it said retweet if you didn't lose anybody to Jackson State, so I just hit retweet. That's awesome what he's doing. Really neat, really cool. I walked by the TV on the way to practice (and Sanders was) on ESPN today. I said it before, your hire a head coach, sometimes it helps your football program. Sometimes, you hire a unique football coach and it changes your entire university. It changes the perspective of your university and the amount of energy, how many kids want to go to the school, how many applications come in. So, it's why football has always been the driving forces at schools. I'm sure that's happening there."
On signing placekicker Caden Costa…
"This position's hard to evaluate obviously, for everybody, especially in college. It's not like the NFL where you have all the time with them. So, we end up leaning on people that that's their thing. Chris Sailer or other people that work with the kids and stuff. Those people raved about him. I think that he won in a lot of areas in the kicking camp that they had him at number one in a lot of areas. So, I've always said, if you find the special one, put him on scholarship. Everyone wants to do the walk-on thing and say 'well, don't waste a scholarship' until you're at the end of a game and you lose the game with a wide-right. I bet Ed Orgeron's pretty happy that he's got a kicker on scholarship after Saturday."
On when the incoming recruits will create an impact on the program…
"Well we've never stayed anywhere that long. So, I'm not really sure how that works. That was a joke. I think, yeah, a lot of the times year three, especially with high school kids. I think because of all the transfers that are going to happen you'll see more than ever you're going to be forced to play kids in their first year or so, I think you'll see an impact next year."
On COVID-19 status for Saturday's game…
"We are back. The last guys are tickling in here, yesterday and today. And I think we've been three or four tests in a row and nothing. So, hopefully we can keep that up for the next few days."
Players Mentioned
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