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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Photo by: Ole Miss Athletics
Lane Kiffin Weekly Press Conference
10/10/2022 | Football
OXFORD, Miss. – Ole Miss football head coach Lane Kiffin met with the media Monday to recap his team's SEC road win at Vanderbilt, as well as look ahead at this weekend's next conference test at home against Auburn. A transcript can be found below.
Opening statement…
"Recap of the game, very glad we got a road win. Glad the way that, for the most part, we finished the game—48-8 in the last 31 minutes of the game. That's very good playing on the road. Not very pleased with how we started. We didn't tackle very well at all. A lot of work to do. We didn't punt, which is a goal of ours. That part was good, but at the same time, we had three series that we get no points out of by throwing them the ball twice and missing a throw on the fourth-down conversion, so a lot of work to do."
On Jonathan Mingo…
"Congratulations to Jonathan Mingo with the receiving record. I think that's really cool for a guy who has been here a long time, never complains about catches or playing time. It's awesome to use those stories with the team this morning for guys to understand there's something to just working really hard and doing all the little things like you did to spring another touchdown run by blocking a linebacker. Glad for him."
On Auburn…
"Huge game coming up, a team that has beat us twice and has really good players and has played really good at times. We're going to need to improve. We're going to need our fans to come with a lot of energy. When you watch football around the country, you see how fans matter. You saw false starts at the end of the Alabama game and the inability for people to hear when they're trying to use a verbal cadence. Saw the effect in the Kentucky game by our crowd. We need that again."
On Michael Trigg…
"We don't have any public injury information like always."
On Ladarius Tennison, Tysheem Johnson and Isheem Young playing rock, paper, scissors to decide who starts at safety…
"That's why we don't let assistant coaches talk to the media. Chris Partridge decided to tell the media that we do that. That's just something that we were in a situation with three really good players that basically play two spots. We play a lot of plays on defense because of our offensive tempo. It's very hard for anybody to play the whole game and play really fast. Those guys, we knew would end up playing, if there's 80 plays, 60 between all of them. I just said, well, they can't hold it against us which one starts, so let them play rock, paper, scissors every week. They can only blame themselves. It's a classic. Because then they argue when one wins, they say best two out of three. It gets them arguing with each other, not us."
On his go-to on rock, paper, scissors…
"I haven't played that for a while. The only time I guess I really have anymore is with Knox, and then you're not allowed to win because then it goes to best of five, it just keeps going. I don't really have a go-to on that."
On the health of the team without a bye week to this point…
"It is what it is. Whatever the schedule is, don't worry about it. You never know. Sometimes you wish it was at a certain time and it comes later and you don't know that you actually like it better then. Everybody has issues this time of year. We have ours. It seems like a lot of them. We'll do our best and move people around like we have and figure it out."
On playing Auburn…
"I think they've got really good players and have given us problems. We haven't done really well offensively in either game. We've got to worry about what we can control, which is playing really well and playing a full game. Now we've shown we can do it backwards. Normally we were this first-half team and don't play great fourth quarters, and we were the opposite this week. The challenge is to put it all together."
On the challenge for coaches on the hot seat…
"I didn't do very good, I got fired after five games, so I'm probably not the one to ask how to do that. I was 3-2, so I'm probably not the right one to ask that."
On challenges running the ball against Vandy…
"Every game is different. It's why you predict this is going to happen, you don't know. They coach too, they play too. People know what you do and they start to take it away, otherwise it'd be easy every week. Once you start running and putting up 300-yard games and stuff, people start doing different stuff to you. That opens up different things. To me, they were playing a lot of run stunts and heavy run game in the front. So you saw, when we passed, you have a lot of time to throw. That's just how it always works, and it's why you always want balance, so when they take one away, you can do the other."
On Mingo…
"I just really like him as a kid. He's an awesome leader by example. Never says anything but just works and never complains. He's been through adversity. I remember the passion he had when the guy came out and tried to practice for Alabama when there was no way he was going to be able to go and still tried, and the tears in his eyes. It's just special kids. You take a team meeting at every school and say, 'Who loves football?' And they'll all raise their hand. Well that's not true. When you really love football, you practice and prepare like this guy does. He's just awesome to have around."
On the pass protection…
"I think it's better. Not to not be completely positive, but part of that is, once you run the ball, they play the pass different. You get different pass rushes and you don't get in a lot of third-and-longs. They have improved. That's been good. But the ability to run the ball like they have definitely helps that."
On if they have a name for the set with JJ Pegues and KD Hill playing fullback…
"That's what we did at Alabama. Just a goal line thing. We've actually had it and didn't have a situation where we really needed it. It just came up. I think it was A'shawn robinson and Jonathan Allen. It was just something that we always had. I think Payne did it once for us too. We don't have a lot of bigger tight end bodies. Those guys a lot of times are more athletic at things. It was good. We got out on it today because, if you watch the celebration afterward, all of the offensive players celebrate, then all the D-linemen run over to each other and celebrate. I tried to teach them it's a team game, you can celebrate with the guy who scored the touchdown too."
On talking to Clark Lea scoring a late TD at Vandy…
"Sometimes things happen there in the heat of the game and you don't really feel great about it. Even though our players get mad at me, probably should've taken a knee there, and I told him that needs one yard to have the school record. They said that at the beginning of the series. So we were trying to throw him a hitch and tell him to run out of bounds. They clouded it the first two times, so that's why we threw him a ball there at the end, so I wanted him to know that too. Matt Jones has been service team player of the week like four weeks in a row. So we moved him up and brought him on the trip. Kind of got caught up in that but didn't really like how it felt."
On Zach Evans and Quinshon Judkins…
"I just think they have a really good relationship. Very unselfish, which is hard to do. It's a hard thing, egos get involved and there are only so many carries, and only one guy can be in at a time for the most part. It's not like playing receiver. I think they've done a great job and really complement each other really well."
On Zach Evans…
"I think he had a really good second half and he set the tone. He talked about playing angry at halftime and he came out and ran the guy over on the sidelines instead of running out of bounds, so I think that was good to see. Then that followed later on with the touchdown run, another one where you could go out of bounds. I think that was really good and our sideline felt that hit when he ran the guy over on the sidelines."
On Kyirin Heath…
"He just hasn't had a lot of opportunities. He had a couple holds at the end of games when he got in there and some freshman mistakes. He's going to be really good. Have really high expectations for him."
On the short passing game turning into big plays…
"Any time you can throw short and run long and score from far, it makes it a lot easier. That was huge. We've had a lot of explosive passes this season but not necessarily the really long ones. That obviously was really good to have. That's a quarterback's friend to use your players, throw it short and they make a lot of yards after contact."
Opening statement…
"Recap of the game, very glad we got a road win. Glad the way that, for the most part, we finished the game—48-8 in the last 31 minutes of the game. That's very good playing on the road. Not very pleased with how we started. We didn't tackle very well at all. A lot of work to do. We didn't punt, which is a goal of ours. That part was good, but at the same time, we had three series that we get no points out of by throwing them the ball twice and missing a throw on the fourth-down conversion, so a lot of work to do."
On Jonathan Mingo…
"Congratulations to Jonathan Mingo with the receiving record. I think that's really cool for a guy who has been here a long time, never complains about catches or playing time. It's awesome to use those stories with the team this morning for guys to understand there's something to just working really hard and doing all the little things like you did to spring another touchdown run by blocking a linebacker. Glad for him."
On Auburn…
"Huge game coming up, a team that has beat us twice and has really good players and has played really good at times. We're going to need to improve. We're going to need our fans to come with a lot of energy. When you watch football around the country, you see how fans matter. You saw false starts at the end of the Alabama game and the inability for people to hear when they're trying to use a verbal cadence. Saw the effect in the Kentucky game by our crowd. We need that again."
On Michael Trigg…
"We don't have any public injury information like always."
On Ladarius Tennison, Tysheem Johnson and Isheem Young playing rock, paper, scissors to decide who starts at safety…
"That's why we don't let assistant coaches talk to the media. Chris Partridge decided to tell the media that we do that. That's just something that we were in a situation with three really good players that basically play two spots. We play a lot of plays on defense because of our offensive tempo. It's very hard for anybody to play the whole game and play really fast. Those guys, we knew would end up playing, if there's 80 plays, 60 between all of them. I just said, well, they can't hold it against us which one starts, so let them play rock, paper, scissors every week. They can only blame themselves. It's a classic. Because then they argue when one wins, they say best two out of three. It gets them arguing with each other, not us."
On his go-to on rock, paper, scissors…
"I haven't played that for a while. The only time I guess I really have anymore is with Knox, and then you're not allowed to win because then it goes to best of five, it just keeps going. I don't really have a go-to on that."
On the health of the team without a bye week to this point…
"It is what it is. Whatever the schedule is, don't worry about it. You never know. Sometimes you wish it was at a certain time and it comes later and you don't know that you actually like it better then. Everybody has issues this time of year. We have ours. It seems like a lot of them. We'll do our best and move people around like we have and figure it out."
On playing Auburn…
"I think they've got really good players and have given us problems. We haven't done really well offensively in either game. We've got to worry about what we can control, which is playing really well and playing a full game. Now we've shown we can do it backwards. Normally we were this first-half team and don't play great fourth quarters, and we were the opposite this week. The challenge is to put it all together."
On the challenge for coaches on the hot seat…
"I didn't do very good, I got fired after five games, so I'm probably not the one to ask how to do that. I was 3-2, so I'm probably not the right one to ask that."
On challenges running the ball against Vandy…
"Every game is different. It's why you predict this is going to happen, you don't know. They coach too, they play too. People know what you do and they start to take it away, otherwise it'd be easy every week. Once you start running and putting up 300-yard games and stuff, people start doing different stuff to you. That opens up different things. To me, they were playing a lot of run stunts and heavy run game in the front. So you saw, when we passed, you have a lot of time to throw. That's just how it always works, and it's why you always want balance, so when they take one away, you can do the other."
On Mingo…
"I just really like him as a kid. He's an awesome leader by example. Never says anything but just works and never complains. He's been through adversity. I remember the passion he had when the guy came out and tried to practice for Alabama when there was no way he was going to be able to go and still tried, and the tears in his eyes. It's just special kids. You take a team meeting at every school and say, 'Who loves football?' And they'll all raise their hand. Well that's not true. When you really love football, you practice and prepare like this guy does. He's just awesome to have around."
On the pass protection…
"I think it's better. Not to not be completely positive, but part of that is, once you run the ball, they play the pass different. You get different pass rushes and you don't get in a lot of third-and-longs. They have improved. That's been good. But the ability to run the ball like they have definitely helps that."
On if they have a name for the set with JJ Pegues and KD Hill playing fullback…
"That's what we did at Alabama. Just a goal line thing. We've actually had it and didn't have a situation where we really needed it. It just came up. I think it was A'shawn robinson and Jonathan Allen. It was just something that we always had. I think Payne did it once for us too. We don't have a lot of bigger tight end bodies. Those guys a lot of times are more athletic at things. It was good. We got out on it today because, if you watch the celebration afterward, all of the offensive players celebrate, then all the D-linemen run over to each other and celebrate. I tried to teach them it's a team game, you can celebrate with the guy who scored the touchdown too."
On talking to Clark Lea scoring a late TD at Vandy…
"Sometimes things happen there in the heat of the game and you don't really feel great about it. Even though our players get mad at me, probably should've taken a knee there, and I told him that needs one yard to have the school record. They said that at the beginning of the series. So we were trying to throw him a hitch and tell him to run out of bounds. They clouded it the first two times, so that's why we threw him a ball there at the end, so I wanted him to know that too. Matt Jones has been service team player of the week like four weeks in a row. So we moved him up and brought him on the trip. Kind of got caught up in that but didn't really like how it felt."
On Zach Evans and Quinshon Judkins…
"I just think they have a really good relationship. Very unselfish, which is hard to do. It's a hard thing, egos get involved and there are only so many carries, and only one guy can be in at a time for the most part. It's not like playing receiver. I think they've done a great job and really complement each other really well."
On Zach Evans…
"I think he had a really good second half and he set the tone. He talked about playing angry at halftime and he came out and ran the guy over on the sidelines instead of running out of bounds, so I think that was good to see. Then that followed later on with the touchdown run, another one where you could go out of bounds. I think that was really good and our sideline felt that hit when he ran the guy over on the sidelines."
On Kyirin Heath…
"He just hasn't had a lot of opportunities. He had a couple holds at the end of games when he got in there and some freshman mistakes. He's going to be really good. Have really high expectations for him."
On the short passing game turning into big plays…
"Any time you can throw short and run long and score from far, it makes it a lot easier. That was huge. We've had a lot of explosive passes this season but not necessarily the really long ones. That obviously was really good to have. That's a quarterback's friend to use your players, throw it short and they make a lot of yards after contact."
Players Mentioned
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