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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Lane Kiffin Weekly Press Conference
10/18/2021 | Football
Ole Miss football head coach Lane Kiffin met with the media Monday to recap his team's SEC road win at Tennessee and preview the No. 12 Rebels' matchup with LSU this weekend at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. A transcript can be found below.
Opening statement…
"A recap of the game, obviously happy that we won the game. Very much like the week before, I think we left a lot of things out there, especially in the second half. It's a very difficult place to play with as much energy as I've ever been a part of, so it kind of felt at one point like it was a scene from The Gladiator, like a movie in a Roman coliseum. I know our players kind of felt that and did some things early that were unusual that happen in that type of environment. It was a lot of stress that they put on us, and we were able to overcome that and hang on at the end. Very high play-count game for the offensive players, over 100 plays in the game. We were already extremely beat up and were not in good shape for this week, but it is what it is. People from somewhere gotta step up."
On Matt Corral's 30-carry performance…
"That's not a stat that I'm excited about. We'd like for that to be a running back and not our 200-pound quarterback, so he's not in very good shape, hasn't been for the past two days, so we gotta see how we are on injuries. Hopefully he will play but I do not feel good about that right now."
On his thoughts of what's been unfolding at LSU the past couple of days…
"I don't know the details for all that stuff. Obviously Ed [Orgeron] did a great job there and won a national championship, so I'm not really sure what happened there as of late. It's crazy because they just beat a really good Florida team, and I'm sure not a lot of people really gave him a chance after the Kentucky game. It shows that they have great players and can play really well, and they did that. I think to finish that, this is the profession that we've always been in, but now more than ever it's not as much what have you done in the last year but rather what have you done this Saturday? I just had this conversation with another head coach who's struggling a little bit, and I was trying to motivate him. Every Sunday you're either a good or bad coach based off of that Saturday, and it switches. When I see a thing on SEC Network when I walk by where someone is talking bad about Saban after the A&M game as a coach, it just shows you where we're at."
On Dannis Jackson and Jake Springer…
"Jake played with phenomenal effort for a guy who really hadn't done anything for about a month. I thought what we had talked about all offseason and even last season, down on our service team is Mark Robinson, Otis [Reese], and Springer, and you'd see them everyday and you could arguably see them as our three best defensive players when they're playing or among the top four, and they showed it Saturday. All three played really well, so it was awesome to see. As for the first question about Dannis, we needed guys to step up and he made a huge play on the slant and go. Hopefully that builds his confidence, and again that was a highly unusual place to play. When it's sold out that place is rocking anyway but with all of that combined, for him to go into that environment and make a big play like that, to me that builds confidence and tells us that he should be able to do this and continue this, especially now as we come back home."
On how close he is to Ed Orgeron and if this week now feels awkward for him after what has transpired…
"It doesn't make this awkward for me. Just like last week, it seems like there's always something every week, and so our preparation last week had nothing to do with me having coached there before. This week has nothing to do with my relationship with Coach O. It's just one day at a time preparing and like I told our team this morning in our team meeting, good is the enemy of great, and I feel like that's where we are right now. We do good things and we get satisfied with them. We don't do great things and we don't close that game out and win a two or three possession game like I feel like we should in the second half. We get complacent. So I don't think about anything related to Coach O this week or any of that. We have a really good relationship. He's not a big talk on the phone kind of guy as you can imagine, but he actually texted me after their game on Saturday. He's an awesome guy and a phenomenal coach."
On the atmosphere at Tennessee…
"That's not arguably the craziest atmosphere since I've been at Ole Miss. I don't know if there's been much more anywhere for any team with all things combined than with that game and how that crowd was. Like I said it was like The Gladiator movie at one point. I think that helps our players in the long run as we go back onto the road into other places. To me we've played in the hardest environment with all of the stuff they had going on that we possibly could."
On confidence in Luke Altmyer…
"Luke is doing a great job, got set back with an injury and has battled back from that. Missed a lot of time and reps with that. Really hasn't had a chance to go in with any rhythm. He goes in for one play and the ball gets knocked down. We have good confidence in all of our backups."
On addressing penalty issues…
"Just we need to talk about it, showed them the penalties this morning like we do every week. Critical penalties, a number of third-down defensive penalties, a fourth down that we could have converted, offensive holding, major penalties in critical situations that completely change the outcome of a game."
On Casey Kelly…
"Casey did a really good job going in there, with all of our injuries going on offensively and really down arguably down two tight ends to start the season. Then Casey coming back has helped us. He played really well."
On LSU running the ball…
"LSU always has great players, they put it together with the running game last week. I saw the back running people over like Leonard Fournette. That's a challenge obviously."
On Eli Manning and what the Manning family means to Ole Miss…
"Obviously they're the university, the Manning family. I have always had great respect for them and second place where the quarterback was played and then the head coach. It will be really cool Saturday. I was reading something this morning and I would think this would be a very hot ticket. You get to go see Eli Manning and Matt Corral. So it will be a pretty cool thing Saturday."
On addressing coaching rumors with the team…
"I don't think I've ever had to address that with the team. I think the team knows how we focus, one week, one day at a time. I've never addressed that, maybe I should. We don't worry about things we can't control that are on the outside. Obviously in recruiting you always battle that; every coach probably battles that but especially since leaving Tennessee. It is what it is, and we just work our way through it."
On Jerrion Ealy…
"He had just gotten back from an injury, we got him in there, he did some good things. You could tell he had been off for a bit. Hopefully he's back at where he was. Obviously, we don't want our quarterback running 30 times, we don't know if our quarterback is going to play this week, so our running backs need to step up."
On creating a difficult environment for opponents…
"I don't have that answer. Obviously our first year was COVID. We have not felt that this year, anything like when we went to Alabama and what we had to deal with there offensively or last week at Tennessee. It is what it is. I know it can be done, because we felt it at Alabama when we were here however many years ago. We had issues communicating, the place was rocking. It can definitely be done here; it would be awesome to have. It's a competitive advantage and that's why they call it home field advantage. Some places have it more than others. It's been done here, I've been on the other side of it."
Opening statement…
"A recap of the game, obviously happy that we won the game. Very much like the week before, I think we left a lot of things out there, especially in the second half. It's a very difficult place to play with as much energy as I've ever been a part of, so it kind of felt at one point like it was a scene from The Gladiator, like a movie in a Roman coliseum. I know our players kind of felt that and did some things early that were unusual that happen in that type of environment. It was a lot of stress that they put on us, and we were able to overcome that and hang on at the end. Very high play-count game for the offensive players, over 100 plays in the game. We were already extremely beat up and were not in good shape for this week, but it is what it is. People from somewhere gotta step up."
On Matt Corral's 30-carry performance…
"That's not a stat that I'm excited about. We'd like for that to be a running back and not our 200-pound quarterback, so he's not in very good shape, hasn't been for the past two days, so we gotta see how we are on injuries. Hopefully he will play but I do not feel good about that right now."
On his thoughts of what's been unfolding at LSU the past couple of days…
"I don't know the details for all that stuff. Obviously Ed [Orgeron] did a great job there and won a national championship, so I'm not really sure what happened there as of late. It's crazy because they just beat a really good Florida team, and I'm sure not a lot of people really gave him a chance after the Kentucky game. It shows that they have great players and can play really well, and they did that. I think to finish that, this is the profession that we've always been in, but now more than ever it's not as much what have you done in the last year but rather what have you done this Saturday? I just had this conversation with another head coach who's struggling a little bit, and I was trying to motivate him. Every Sunday you're either a good or bad coach based off of that Saturday, and it switches. When I see a thing on SEC Network when I walk by where someone is talking bad about Saban after the A&M game as a coach, it just shows you where we're at."
On Dannis Jackson and Jake Springer…
"Jake played with phenomenal effort for a guy who really hadn't done anything for about a month. I thought what we had talked about all offseason and even last season, down on our service team is Mark Robinson, Otis [Reese], and Springer, and you'd see them everyday and you could arguably see them as our three best defensive players when they're playing or among the top four, and they showed it Saturday. All three played really well, so it was awesome to see. As for the first question about Dannis, we needed guys to step up and he made a huge play on the slant and go. Hopefully that builds his confidence, and again that was a highly unusual place to play. When it's sold out that place is rocking anyway but with all of that combined, for him to go into that environment and make a big play like that, to me that builds confidence and tells us that he should be able to do this and continue this, especially now as we come back home."
On how close he is to Ed Orgeron and if this week now feels awkward for him after what has transpired…
"It doesn't make this awkward for me. Just like last week, it seems like there's always something every week, and so our preparation last week had nothing to do with me having coached there before. This week has nothing to do with my relationship with Coach O. It's just one day at a time preparing and like I told our team this morning in our team meeting, good is the enemy of great, and I feel like that's where we are right now. We do good things and we get satisfied with them. We don't do great things and we don't close that game out and win a two or three possession game like I feel like we should in the second half. We get complacent. So I don't think about anything related to Coach O this week or any of that. We have a really good relationship. He's not a big talk on the phone kind of guy as you can imagine, but he actually texted me after their game on Saturday. He's an awesome guy and a phenomenal coach."
On the atmosphere at Tennessee…
"That's not arguably the craziest atmosphere since I've been at Ole Miss. I don't know if there's been much more anywhere for any team with all things combined than with that game and how that crowd was. Like I said it was like The Gladiator movie at one point. I think that helps our players in the long run as we go back onto the road into other places. To me we've played in the hardest environment with all of the stuff they had going on that we possibly could."
On confidence in Luke Altmyer…
"Luke is doing a great job, got set back with an injury and has battled back from that. Missed a lot of time and reps with that. Really hasn't had a chance to go in with any rhythm. He goes in for one play and the ball gets knocked down. We have good confidence in all of our backups."
On addressing penalty issues…
"Just we need to talk about it, showed them the penalties this morning like we do every week. Critical penalties, a number of third-down defensive penalties, a fourth down that we could have converted, offensive holding, major penalties in critical situations that completely change the outcome of a game."
On Casey Kelly…
"Casey did a really good job going in there, with all of our injuries going on offensively and really down arguably down two tight ends to start the season. Then Casey coming back has helped us. He played really well."
On LSU running the ball…
"LSU always has great players, they put it together with the running game last week. I saw the back running people over like Leonard Fournette. That's a challenge obviously."
On Eli Manning and what the Manning family means to Ole Miss…
"Obviously they're the university, the Manning family. I have always had great respect for them and second place where the quarterback was played and then the head coach. It will be really cool Saturday. I was reading something this morning and I would think this would be a very hot ticket. You get to go see Eli Manning and Matt Corral. So it will be a pretty cool thing Saturday."
On addressing coaching rumors with the team…
"I don't think I've ever had to address that with the team. I think the team knows how we focus, one week, one day at a time. I've never addressed that, maybe I should. We don't worry about things we can't control that are on the outside. Obviously in recruiting you always battle that; every coach probably battles that but especially since leaving Tennessee. It is what it is, and we just work our way through it."
On Jerrion Ealy…
"He had just gotten back from an injury, we got him in there, he did some good things. You could tell he had been off for a bit. Hopefully he's back at where he was. Obviously, we don't want our quarterback running 30 times, we don't know if our quarterback is going to play this week, so our running backs need to step up."
On creating a difficult environment for opponents…
"I don't have that answer. Obviously our first year was COVID. We have not felt that this year, anything like when we went to Alabama and what we had to deal with there offensively or last week at Tennessee. It is what it is. I know it can be done, because we felt it at Alabama when we were here however many years ago. We had issues communicating, the place was rocking. It can definitely be done here; it would be awesome to have. It's a competitive advantage and that's why they call it home field advantage. Some places have it more than others. It's been done here, I've been on the other side of it."
Players Mentioned
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LB
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DB
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