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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Lane Kiffin Weekly Press Conference
9/13/2021 | Football
Ole Miss football head coach Lane Kiffin met with the media Monday to recap his team's 54-17 win over Austin Peay and preview the Rebels' upcoming tilt with Tulane on Saturday, Sept. 18, at 7 p.m. CT on ESPN2. A transcript can be found below.
Opening statement…
"Back to work, it's good to be in a normal week after not having one with the opener starting early and then last week with losing two days with a short week. Short Monday practice like normal at the beginning of the year. This (Tulane) is a really good team, very talented, very well coached, and that's not coach speak. You can see it on the film. That's why they go to Norman down to the last play of the game. When you watch them, they've got really good players. A lot of times these Alabama, Louisiana schools got a lot of players that are in-state and can't all go to Auburn, Alabama or LSU. So, we see them all over the place, really good-looking kids. I told our team today if you don't know about conferences and you just watch film and watch them play, this is an SEC opponent."
On Tulane's offense…
"They're really multiple. They're well coached, they cause issues. Looks like he's (Coach Willie Fritz) done it a number of places. It can change week-to-week and look at what you do and give you problems. Not just run plays like a lot of people do. And a really good quarterback that can move, so we got a lot of work to do."
On offensive line play…
"Pro Football Focus don't know a lot about watching film, so no disrespect but we didn't play real well up front. I know the numbers look good, but tell Pro Football Focus to realize we're running against a five-man box most of the time, that they're staying deep because there are three receivers. So, you're supposed to be able to run into that. We got beat in pass protection in one-on-one matchups, quarterback had to get rid of the ball early. So, I was not pleased how they played up front. But, what do I know?"
On Tulane's physicality showing up on film…
"It does. They've got a lot of good-looking players. They start different guys in two weeks on defense, they rotate them in. It really looks like they have 22, 24 players they feel really good about, and that's a good thing to have because they stay fresh and probably has a lot to do with how well they played in the second half versus Oklahoma. And really, they gave up no big plays in this last game until the end when it was out of hand. It looked like a third team was in. They're really good, you can't go on past different years, different games don't mean anything. Sometimes the week before don't mean a whole lot, but you look at what these guys have done, they've played really well against some really good players in week one."
On Jerrion Ealy's limited touches…
"I don't think that's on purpose. He missed out on touches in the second half last week with pulling guys earlier. We were a little bit pass heavy last week early. Trying to work on some things. It's a long season. He's not the biggest back so he's not going to be Derrick Henry given the ball 90 times in a two-game span. But, he does a lot for us and continues to."
On having defensive standouts…
"I think it showed up with Jake Springer not playing last week. He's very physical, you saw the way he was hitting in the opening game, so we missed that last week. I didn't think we played great on defense. I thought we played okay. The two defensive ends made a lot of plays with their rush. But we obviously did not play very well at corner with all the P.I.'s and two deep balls. So we've got to play better and we've got to tackle better."
On Demon Clowney and Tywone Malone…
"We need guys to come along. We're not playing very many guys up front right now which is not good. Both those guys are ends that are young guys, different players, they have big upside."
On Jalen Cunningham's position change to NT…
"That's a hard move obviously to make to go all of a sudden to nose tackle. He did it in high school, so that's a work in progress. He does give us obviously a really big body there. For the front we've been playing a lot of odd front, zero technique. When you have a really big nose, that's a difficult defense, so hopefully he can continue to develop."
Opening statement…
"Back to work, it's good to be in a normal week after not having one with the opener starting early and then last week with losing two days with a short week. Short Monday practice like normal at the beginning of the year. This (Tulane) is a really good team, very talented, very well coached, and that's not coach speak. You can see it on the film. That's why they go to Norman down to the last play of the game. When you watch them, they've got really good players. A lot of times these Alabama, Louisiana schools got a lot of players that are in-state and can't all go to Auburn, Alabama or LSU. So, we see them all over the place, really good-looking kids. I told our team today if you don't know about conferences and you just watch film and watch them play, this is an SEC opponent."
On Tulane's offense…
"They're really multiple. They're well coached, they cause issues. Looks like he's (Coach Willie Fritz) done it a number of places. It can change week-to-week and look at what you do and give you problems. Not just run plays like a lot of people do. And a really good quarterback that can move, so we got a lot of work to do."
On offensive line play…
"Pro Football Focus don't know a lot about watching film, so no disrespect but we didn't play real well up front. I know the numbers look good, but tell Pro Football Focus to realize we're running against a five-man box most of the time, that they're staying deep because there are three receivers. So, you're supposed to be able to run into that. We got beat in pass protection in one-on-one matchups, quarterback had to get rid of the ball early. So, I was not pleased how they played up front. But, what do I know?"
On Tulane's physicality showing up on film…
"It does. They've got a lot of good-looking players. They start different guys in two weeks on defense, they rotate them in. It really looks like they have 22, 24 players they feel really good about, and that's a good thing to have because they stay fresh and probably has a lot to do with how well they played in the second half versus Oklahoma. And really, they gave up no big plays in this last game until the end when it was out of hand. It looked like a third team was in. They're really good, you can't go on past different years, different games don't mean anything. Sometimes the week before don't mean a whole lot, but you look at what these guys have done, they've played really well against some really good players in week one."
On Jerrion Ealy's limited touches…
"I don't think that's on purpose. He missed out on touches in the second half last week with pulling guys earlier. We were a little bit pass heavy last week early. Trying to work on some things. It's a long season. He's not the biggest back so he's not going to be Derrick Henry given the ball 90 times in a two-game span. But, he does a lot for us and continues to."
On having defensive standouts…
"I think it showed up with Jake Springer not playing last week. He's very physical, you saw the way he was hitting in the opening game, so we missed that last week. I didn't think we played great on defense. I thought we played okay. The two defensive ends made a lot of plays with their rush. But we obviously did not play very well at corner with all the P.I.'s and two deep balls. So we've got to play better and we've got to tackle better."
On Demon Clowney and Tywone Malone…
"We need guys to come along. We're not playing very many guys up front right now which is not good. Both those guys are ends that are young guys, different players, they have big upside."
On Jalen Cunningham's position change to NT…
"That's a hard move obviously to make to go all of a sudden to nose tackle. He did it in high school, so that's a work in progress. He does give us obviously a really big body there. For the front we've been playing a lot of odd front, zero technique. When you have a really big nose, that's a difficult defense, so hopefully he can continue to develop."
Players Mentioned
OLB
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OL
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RB
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DL
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DB
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