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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Lane Kiffin Weekly Press Conference
10/3/2022 | Football
OXFORD, Miss. – Ole Miss football head coach Lane Kiffin met with the media Monday to recap his team's 22-19 win over then-No. 7 Kentucky and preview the Rebels' next test on the road this Saturday at Vanderbilt. A transcript can be found below...
Opening statement…
"Recapping the game, first off, the crowd was really to our advantage. Which is what the goal has been. It impacts recruiting. You hear it from recruits, what they say after games. Not just what maybe you think when they watch on TV, but when they're here. And it impacted the game. There's three penalties on them on offense—two false starts and an illegal shift, not being set—that could be credited to the crowd. You could say they won the game. That's the way we want it to be. So that's an awesome job. Like we tell our players, do it again. Not getting ahead of this week, but next home game, same time, same network, same everything, so let's redo that from an atmosphere standpoint the exact same way—regardless of what teams are ranked or any of that. It dramatically impacts our program, besides just the players I mentioned in recruiting. It's huge. So let's do it again."
On the win over Kentucky…
"As far as the play on the field, our defense was probably better than we even felt it was. Watching the film, we just missed some tackles, some poor tackling techniques, but we really made a ton of significant plays. Played extremely physical with really great effort. We had some high-effort plays on there, from sacks to the safety. That was great to see. Not a good offensive second half, and we've got to close people out. Regardless of rankings, any of that. When you have a chance to finish off games, and maybe even earlier than that. We go up 14-0 and let a kickoff return give them all the momentum. There's tons of times in there where you can make a game so it's not close in the end, and we did not do that. Your analytics will catch up to you that way, when you play a bunch of games like that, that come down to one play here or there. That's not what you want to do. Glad that we won. Glad that we were able to show them today how this could've gone in other ways and how we have to get better in all these areas.
On Quinshon Judkins and Micah Pettus earning SEC weekly honors…
"Judkins was Freshman of the Week. He did play well. And Micah Pettus was the Offensive Lineman of the Week, which, I don't know how they come up with that, but they got that right. He did play great for a first start, he played great whether it was his first start or not. Really physical, how we talk about straining to finish, finishing people with a violent attitude, and that was awesome to see. So we pointed him out today in film, told our players again, this is how you're supposed to do in this program. You work hard, you wait for your turn, you don't complain. The guy did exactly that, and when his turn came up, he made the most of it."
On offensive struggles in the second half…
"Well there's some red zone, which a year ago was an issue. We were very poor in the red zone, even though we scored a lot of points for the season. We had done really well in the red zone this year. Not finishing off drives. We've got a number of plays where just one thing here or there. Some more runs can really break if we're just patient with them and hit where they're supposed to go. We've got to finish off drives. I'm not complaining about it. There are games that you get breaks, and there are games where you don't get breaks. From the referee part, a lot of things went against us. Very close calls that can go either way, and you're going to have some games where you benefit from that. We've got to not leave it up to that and make the plays ourselves."
On Micah Pettus…
"Probably as big of a development as we've been around over a year. From a guy who came here, redshirted, looked a long way away from playing a year ago. I asked him this summer when he was doing so much better early in camp, he looked so much better. He said, like a lot of these kids, it was the first time in his life not playing and not traveling. He just reflected on all of his habits and his work ethic and just completely changed himself mentally and physically. It's awesome to see. Not too many times you've got two freshman tackles and a guy has to make his first start in a big SEC game and play that well."
On Caleb Warren's health, the center position…
"He was not 100 percent. He was kind of in emergency-only situation, and the snaps kind of put us in that situation. Now, we obviously communicated with him, he felt really good in warm-ups after not really doing anything all week. He said he was ready to go. So he went in there not 100 percent. Even with him, the snaps have been an issue. They were definitely an issue in the game. That's hard to play quarterback. There are some things where we want to get down on (Dart) on reading a play. He's got to read the end whether to give the ball for a touchdown or not, and when you watch it again, he's down here looking for the ball. The snaps are very important. I think we did something today that I think will help. We'll see if it does Saturday."
On not overlooking Vanderbilt coming off a Top 10 win…
"We spent a lot of time this morning on that. Just like last week, we said, you've got to prepare the same regardless. Last week, everybody built up the game and everything. Told them, it's a faceless opponent and that. It's not just when you play a team that's not ranked and you're heavily favored with. It's both ways. That way you avoid playing like this. Hopefully they listened. Happens every week. Like I told them, I don't think anybody thought Georgia was going to go in and struggle like they just did at Missouri. It happens every week. Every game is independent of each other. Now we teach them, as you see in our games, every quarter is independent of the quarter before, let alone games."
On Jeremy James moving back to guard vs. Kentucky…
"I don't know that exactly, where we're headed. The good thing is we have some guys that can play multiple positions, like him. Ideally, we'd really like to get more than five. The game has changed. This is just me, I've said it now for two years, I think the defenses have figured out the rotations up front to play tempo teams. They play their starting players 50-60 percent of the game, and they rotate. That has something to look at our fourth quarter scoring. There can't be many teams, if any, that have a bigger first half margin in scoring than what we do against our opponents. Then our fourth quarter is 17-7 or something like that—we've scored seven or 10 points. I do think part of that is slowing down when we're ahead, but I do think that, with the line, if we could rotate guys, that would be better. When we're playing play 75, play 80, at 300-some pounds, and the guy I'm playing against is on play 40. I think there's something to that, and I think it shows on the tape up front, how the end of the game up there looks versus the beginning of the game."
On the play of his receivers thus far this season…
"They've done a really good job, really a mixed group from all over the place. We are deeper there than we have been. That's really without Jaylon Robinson doing much because of injury. He's been hurt in camp and most of this season. He's back to full strength now. That group, just like this team like I've said, has a chance to be really special. It's like all these NBA free agents coming together, and they usually play better at the end of the year when they've had more time together. I'm hoping we get better because of that. Because of guys getting used to how we do things and fitting in and getting more comfortable, and a new quarterback getting more comfortable with them."
On Quinshon Judkins' workload…
"He's great. He was really struggling early in the week physically from all the pounding two weeks ago, but he was better by the end of the week. He was good today even though it was a walkthrough. He didn't take the pounding that he took the week before. He's doing a phenomenal job."
On Jaxson Dart vs. Kentucky…
"I think Jaxson, outside of the interception, which was horrible, did the big things really well. Made some really big throws, some really off-balance throws, having to fade back and lobbing them over there. There were some little things that really could've broken the game open if he would've done right. That will come as he gets more experience, but I thought that, for a game like that, that he did really well."
On being the fastest coach to reach 20 wins at Ole Miss since Vaught…
"I don't know. I don't think about those things. There's a lot of old years that get floated around of this hasn't been done before and the home winning streak and all of that. We're just trying to get to 1-0 each week. And if you do have really good records, that means that you've got really good coaches and players around you. We've got a lot of work to do. As we all know, the schedule was lighter up front than it is at the end, so we've got to improve and get better."
On Chris Partridge going viral…
"That was pretty unique. That was really cool. I was excited after the game but then I kind of always have that, after 30 minutes I come back and get mad about what we could've done better and finish the game out on offense and not have to go through all of that. I actually saw that video and it made me smile. That was really cool to see. Then I found a picture of Charlie's baby, and he kind of has the same look on his face that Charlie did when he was hugging Partridge, so I sent that to the staff. It was pretty cool. Son Maverick and Charlie and they looked exactly alike with their face."
On the play of Judkins…
"It's just unique. You would not guess that being around him. His personality is very calm, very quiet. So you wouldn't, personality-wise, guess that. The most unique we had was Troy Polamalu. He was unbelievable off the field, and then the switch would go and he would just want to knock everybody out on the field. Q kind of reminds me of that off the field. It's really neat. He was raised really well."
On Vanderbilt's improvement…
"Yeah, definitely than my first year. They're way better. The scores of our game the first year versus on the road up there, they really struggled in a lot of areas. Then last year, they were competitive. I always say, an Alabama or Georgia game can be an outlier, especially when it's one of the years when they've got a great quarterback. You can't take that into consideration. Their personnel is so great, that once it gets rolling, the game gets lopsided. They've been very competitive outside of that game."
Opening statement…
"Recapping the game, first off, the crowd was really to our advantage. Which is what the goal has been. It impacts recruiting. You hear it from recruits, what they say after games. Not just what maybe you think when they watch on TV, but when they're here. And it impacted the game. There's three penalties on them on offense—two false starts and an illegal shift, not being set—that could be credited to the crowd. You could say they won the game. That's the way we want it to be. So that's an awesome job. Like we tell our players, do it again. Not getting ahead of this week, but next home game, same time, same network, same everything, so let's redo that from an atmosphere standpoint the exact same way—regardless of what teams are ranked or any of that. It dramatically impacts our program, besides just the players I mentioned in recruiting. It's huge. So let's do it again."
On the win over Kentucky…
"As far as the play on the field, our defense was probably better than we even felt it was. Watching the film, we just missed some tackles, some poor tackling techniques, but we really made a ton of significant plays. Played extremely physical with really great effort. We had some high-effort plays on there, from sacks to the safety. That was great to see. Not a good offensive second half, and we've got to close people out. Regardless of rankings, any of that. When you have a chance to finish off games, and maybe even earlier than that. We go up 14-0 and let a kickoff return give them all the momentum. There's tons of times in there where you can make a game so it's not close in the end, and we did not do that. Your analytics will catch up to you that way, when you play a bunch of games like that, that come down to one play here or there. That's not what you want to do. Glad that we won. Glad that we were able to show them today how this could've gone in other ways and how we have to get better in all these areas.
On Quinshon Judkins and Micah Pettus earning SEC weekly honors…
"Judkins was Freshman of the Week. He did play well. And Micah Pettus was the Offensive Lineman of the Week, which, I don't know how they come up with that, but they got that right. He did play great for a first start, he played great whether it was his first start or not. Really physical, how we talk about straining to finish, finishing people with a violent attitude, and that was awesome to see. So we pointed him out today in film, told our players again, this is how you're supposed to do in this program. You work hard, you wait for your turn, you don't complain. The guy did exactly that, and when his turn came up, he made the most of it."
On offensive struggles in the second half…
"Well there's some red zone, which a year ago was an issue. We were very poor in the red zone, even though we scored a lot of points for the season. We had done really well in the red zone this year. Not finishing off drives. We've got a number of plays where just one thing here or there. Some more runs can really break if we're just patient with them and hit where they're supposed to go. We've got to finish off drives. I'm not complaining about it. There are games that you get breaks, and there are games where you don't get breaks. From the referee part, a lot of things went against us. Very close calls that can go either way, and you're going to have some games where you benefit from that. We've got to not leave it up to that and make the plays ourselves."
On Micah Pettus…
"Probably as big of a development as we've been around over a year. From a guy who came here, redshirted, looked a long way away from playing a year ago. I asked him this summer when he was doing so much better early in camp, he looked so much better. He said, like a lot of these kids, it was the first time in his life not playing and not traveling. He just reflected on all of his habits and his work ethic and just completely changed himself mentally and physically. It's awesome to see. Not too many times you've got two freshman tackles and a guy has to make his first start in a big SEC game and play that well."
On Caleb Warren's health, the center position…
"He was not 100 percent. He was kind of in emergency-only situation, and the snaps kind of put us in that situation. Now, we obviously communicated with him, he felt really good in warm-ups after not really doing anything all week. He said he was ready to go. So he went in there not 100 percent. Even with him, the snaps have been an issue. They were definitely an issue in the game. That's hard to play quarterback. There are some things where we want to get down on (Dart) on reading a play. He's got to read the end whether to give the ball for a touchdown or not, and when you watch it again, he's down here looking for the ball. The snaps are very important. I think we did something today that I think will help. We'll see if it does Saturday."
On not overlooking Vanderbilt coming off a Top 10 win…
"We spent a lot of time this morning on that. Just like last week, we said, you've got to prepare the same regardless. Last week, everybody built up the game and everything. Told them, it's a faceless opponent and that. It's not just when you play a team that's not ranked and you're heavily favored with. It's both ways. That way you avoid playing like this. Hopefully they listened. Happens every week. Like I told them, I don't think anybody thought Georgia was going to go in and struggle like they just did at Missouri. It happens every week. Every game is independent of each other. Now we teach them, as you see in our games, every quarter is independent of the quarter before, let alone games."
On Jeremy James moving back to guard vs. Kentucky…
"I don't know that exactly, where we're headed. The good thing is we have some guys that can play multiple positions, like him. Ideally, we'd really like to get more than five. The game has changed. This is just me, I've said it now for two years, I think the defenses have figured out the rotations up front to play tempo teams. They play their starting players 50-60 percent of the game, and they rotate. That has something to look at our fourth quarter scoring. There can't be many teams, if any, that have a bigger first half margin in scoring than what we do against our opponents. Then our fourth quarter is 17-7 or something like that—we've scored seven or 10 points. I do think part of that is slowing down when we're ahead, but I do think that, with the line, if we could rotate guys, that would be better. When we're playing play 75, play 80, at 300-some pounds, and the guy I'm playing against is on play 40. I think there's something to that, and I think it shows on the tape up front, how the end of the game up there looks versus the beginning of the game."
On the play of his receivers thus far this season…
"They've done a really good job, really a mixed group from all over the place. We are deeper there than we have been. That's really without Jaylon Robinson doing much because of injury. He's been hurt in camp and most of this season. He's back to full strength now. That group, just like this team like I've said, has a chance to be really special. It's like all these NBA free agents coming together, and they usually play better at the end of the year when they've had more time together. I'm hoping we get better because of that. Because of guys getting used to how we do things and fitting in and getting more comfortable, and a new quarterback getting more comfortable with them."
On Quinshon Judkins' workload…
"He's great. He was really struggling early in the week physically from all the pounding two weeks ago, but he was better by the end of the week. He was good today even though it was a walkthrough. He didn't take the pounding that he took the week before. He's doing a phenomenal job."
On Jaxson Dart vs. Kentucky…
"I think Jaxson, outside of the interception, which was horrible, did the big things really well. Made some really big throws, some really off-balance throws, having to fade back and lobbing them over there. There were some little things that really could've broken the game open if he would've done right. That will come as he gets more experience, but I thought that, for a game like that, that he did really well."
On being the fastest coach to reach 20 wins at Ole Miss since Vaught…
"I don't know. I don't think about those things. There's a lot of old years that get floated around of this hasn't been done before and the home winning streak and all of that. We're just trying to get to 1-0 each week. And if you do have really good records, that means that you've got really good coaches and players around you. We've got a lot of work to do. As we all know, the schedule was lighter up front than it is at the end, so we've got to improve and get better."
On Chris Partridge going viral…
"That was pretty unique. That was really cool. I was excited after the game but then I kind of always have that, after 30 minutes I come back and get mad about what we could've done better and finish the game out on offense and not have to go through all of that. I actually saw that video and it made me smile. That was really cool to see. Then I found a picture of Charlie's baby, and he kind of has the same look on his face that Charlie did when he was hugging Partridge, so I sent that to the staff. It was pretty cool. Son Maverick and Charlie and they looked exactly alike with their face."
On the play of Judkins…
"It's just unique. You would not guess that being around him. His personality is very calm, very quiet. So you wouldn't, personality-wise, guess that. The most unique we had was Troy Polamalu. He was unbelievable off the field, and then the switch would go and he would just want to knock everybody out on the field. Q kind of reminds me of that off the field. It's really neat. He was raised really well."
On Vanderbilt's improvement…
"Yeah, definitely than my first year. They're way better. The scores of our game the first year versus on the road up there, they really struggled in a lot of areas. Then last year, they were competitive. I always say, an Alabama or Georgia game can be an outlier, especially when it's one of the years when they've got a great quarterback. You can't take that into consideration. Their personnel is so great, that once it gets rolling, the game gets lopsided. They've been very competitive outside of that game."
Players Mentioned
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