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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Lane Kiffin Media Day Transcript
8/3/2022 | Football
Opening statement:
"It was good to be out there today. We have a lot of moving parts. Like we told the team in the team meeting, this is a different era nowadays in general. You don't have programs where everyone has been there for years and understands what the expectations are. I'm sure a lot of people are doing this, but especially us, with the amount of transfers and having some many people and guys who are supposed to be big players for us being new, it's a big challenge of ours. It's about how well we can get the players to buy into the values and principles of our organization and what we do here because we know that's not just gonna happen overnight. The challenge now is the faster we can do that, the better we'll be. The team last year did that really well and it became a player's team, so we have a lot of work to do because that team had spent a lot of time together to get to that point."
On what he's looking for from both of his quarterbacks:
"I could've predicted that being the first question. We're looking for the guy that leads the team and moves the team the best. The intangibles within that are timing, accuracy and decision making, but that's why we also chart things like production by series once we get into scrimmages so we can look at it by series and say this is how many points this team scores. The bottom line is are you going to turn the ball over or are you going to score it? I think competition is great for anybody, especially with both of them being young, but I do think that makes you better no matter how old you are. The guy's also gotta play better around whoever it is because you're replacing a veteran quarterback that played extremely well and at times put an injured offense on his shoulders and was able to do it himself in order to win the game. One of these guys isn't going to fill that role exactly yet, so it's going to take having other people around them to help with that."
On if he has a timetable for deciding who the starting quarterback will be:
"Yeah, I mean we'd like to find out sooner rather than later, and like everything else we do here we have analytics, so with the more information we have the better we can make a decision. We can't rush that. I can think of one time in the past where we did and ended up making the wrong decision because we didn't have enough information yet, so however long that takes. Ideally we'd never like for that to go into the season, but we're never going to rule that out without knowing for sure who it's going to be."
On if the next step for the program is to win the division and get to the SEC Championship:
"I don't think like that, and I may be wrong, but I think each year is so new especially nowadays with the turnover of your roster. To think that we left off here and we're supposed to be here, this isn't the NFL where you have most of your roster returning next year and taking the next step. Not just our roster is different, but the people that we play are different. So no I don't look at it that way, that's looking so far ahead. I'm not saying that it isn't achievable, but that's just so far from today. We're still on today and trying to get guys better today and trying to figure things out, so we'll worry about that down the road."
On the defense's depth and how things may look with injuries:
"It's good to have those guys back out there and healthy. We're looking at a lot of different ways to move people around and see what's best because that's a big concern for us. We just have to figure out the best people to play and the best systems to play in because we don't just run a system no matter what and make players fit into that, we look at the players and who's the best to play and then form a system around them. That's why year in and year out we've looked different on offense and defense. I think this year on defense you're going to have a lot of that because we lost a lot of moving parts and some really key players. We're going to have some challenges there as we figure out what's the best way to play and how many lineman and linebackers and defensive backs can do that for us."
On what the progression of training camp will look like moving forward:
"We're just starting things out where it's going to be a lot more focused on the evaluation of players with how they're moving, how they're playing and where they're at from the last time we saw them. That's kind of how we'll be operating a lot of different positions like the quarterback thing. That's more important today so that eventually when that decision comes and having proven each player individually, it'll be a lot easier to get going."
On how he plans to get this year's team to buy in like last year's:
"That's a lot more challenging because I feel like we didn't lose a ton of players from year one to year two that had really significant roles compared to now in year two to year three. We were able to have two years with those guys. If you look at our guys now when you look on paper, the guys that you're saying are going to be significant players, a lot of them are brand new. There are times where we're running 7-on-7 or 8-on-8 and I'm looking at six out of eight people who didn't sign here out of high school and were transfers. That's just the challenge that we're into and we gotta make sure that we look into everything including whether we simplify our systems because so many people are new just so we can make sure that they're playing fast. We have a lot of work to do, and it's important culture-wise to stress to these guys that this is how we do things. It's like a blended family coming together that has a parent somewhere else. We're better, but we're different."
On if he's seen any progress in any specific areas so far:
"Well it's been half a day, so we'll see. It's the first day so usually everybody is just worried about getting back into the swing of things right now."
On how to balance keeping players healthy with figuring out who can really play:
"It's challenging and different year-to-year based off what you have returning and what you already know about them. If you've got a significant player that's returning and played a full year or two, you know you don't have to push as much. For all these new guys that still have to learn how to play in your system and together, it's like a basketball team with a lot of free agents where now we just have to play a lot of pick-up together."
On what his thoughts are on playing two quarterbacks:
"We're always going to look at everything and decide what's best for the team, not look at what we've done in the past or what we've done before. In general I think it's different for quarterbacks and people pull them too fast. It's not like a pitcher that then has some time and pitches again four days or games later. There's a lot of mental stuff when it comes to playing quarterback. To get pulled is a big deal, so to me we're going to make sure a guy has had every opportunity and that what's been going on is his fault. People pull people off of production like if a guy threw three picks, but then doesn't say well actually two of them were tipped or the receiver ran the wrong route, they just pull them because that's what I'm supposed to do so that I look good when I come in front of you guys after the game. That's not what we do around here."
On how crucial the first day of fall camp is to establish the tone for the remainder of the season:
"It's the only day we have. It's important. We always try to get better today. Again, we don't have pads on, and there's a ton of work to do. We're not making a lot of decisions out of today."
On if he thought his dog would become a recruiting tool:
"I think it's a lot of things. It may seem like this is planned and that this is their life. This was not. It looks pretty brilliant, actually, using the dog as a recruiting tool. College Gameday's already been here for a story on that down the line. It has its Twitter and Juicefest and all this. This was just my dog wanting followers, which I didn't really want."
On the evolution of Juice:
"I actually, as you asked that, things happen and you probably don't know why they happen with different things. You probably don't think that Juice would make me coach better, but we're at Wildrose Kennel now. Today's the third day. I don't know how to train a dog. I don't really do what they tell me to do. Juice is not really well behaved right now. Wildrose came and got him. He's on day three of training camp. They'll come get him in the morning and take him out. They give me a list of notes of this is what he does well, this is what he did today, and actually video the things. Actually this morning when meeting about it, there's so many similarities here to buying in and bringing people in to the culture because they'll call me saying, 'We're bringing him in.' All of the sudden he's around these other dogs and how well they're training has to do with a lot of the training with him, and him not being distracted by all the other things. He's going through the same thing we're going through. We're bringing people into the organization with transfers in. They've got to buy in. Here's a puppy that needs to be taken in over there with all these other dogs that have been training the whole time, and Juice isn't listening to what he needs to be doing. I kind of feel like that's some of our transfers right now."
On if Michael Trigg can me compared to Kyle Pitts:
"I wouldn't call him Kyle Pitts right now. He's got a lot of talent. He does have height, weight, speed combination that makes a great player, but he's got a long way to go. Again, some of these guys think they're older than they are because they transferred, and he just finished his true freshman year. He's got a very high ceiling with a lot of talent out there. I'd love for him to be a great player."
On the most important thing on the first day:
"I think because of the ratio of new players on the roster is really a lot of how we prepare and how we practice. Not as much seeing necessarily and getting everyone on the same page in that way. We had players out there today tackling people. There's a lot of work to do."
On balancing new players with the transfer portal:
"That's always a thing that's adjusting. I don't think that you say it's this many or this many, because there's too many variables. Guys leave early. Guys transfer. All of your players over this year before the next year's class comes, do you have the chance to see really good high school players go compete? If you're sitting there, then you're waiting on transfers. The better your program is and the more you win, the more you sign high school programs. You've got to see most elite programs aren't signing a bunch of transfers because they're just filling spots. They're not filling gaps because they've been there at a really high level for three or four years on their roster."
On being excited about the backfield:
"I'd say there's good and bad about everything. When you lose what you did so many players in the backfield and you have new ones, that's bad. But it's also good because you've got new ones to learn from. You may use them in a different ways than the last group. Just figuring out that out is exciting and fun to do. It's usually better having the whole team returning, but sometimes this makes you a better coach because you've got to figure new things out."
"It was good to be out there today. We have a lot of moving parts. Like we told the team in the team meeting, this is a different era nowadays in general. You don't have programs where everyone has been there for years and understands what the expectations are. I'm sure a lot of people are doing this, but especially us, with the amount of transfers and having some many people and guys who are supposed to be big players for us being new, it's a big challenge of ours. It's about how well we can get the players to buy into the values and principles of our organization and what we do here because we know that's not just gonna happen overnight. The challenge now is the faster we can do that, the better we'll be. The team last year did that really well and it became a player's team, so we have a lot of work to do because that team had spent a lot of time together to get to that point."
On what he's looking for from both of his quarterbacks:
"I could've predicted that being the first question. We're looking for the guy that leads the team and moves the team the best. The intangibles within that are timing, accuracy and decision making, but that's why we also chart things like production by series once we get into scrimmages so we can look at it by series and say this is how many points this team scores. The bottom line is are you going to turn the ball over or are you going to score it? I think competition is great for anybody, especially with both of them being young, but I do think that makes you better no matter how old you are. The guy's also gotta play better around whoever it is because you're replacing a veteran quarterback that played extremely well and at times put an injured offense on his shoulders and was able to do it himself in order to win the game. One of these guys isn't going to fill that role exactly yet, so it's going to take having other people around them to help with that."
On if he has a timetable for deciding who the starting quarterback will be:
"Yeah, I mean we'd like to find out sooner rather than later, and like everything else we do here we have analytics, so with the more information we have the better we can make a decision. We can't rush that. I can think of one time in the past where we did and ended up making the wrong decision because we didn't have enough information yet, so however long that takes. Ideally we'd never like for that to go into the season, but we're never going to rule that out without knowing for sure who it's going to be."
On if the next step for the program is to win the division and get to the SEC Championship:
"I don't think like that, and I may be wrong, but I think each year is so new especially nowadays with the turnover of your roster. To think that we left off here and we're supposed to be here, this isn't the NFL where you have most of your roster returning next year and taking the next step. Not just our roster is different, but the people that we play are different. So no I don't look at it that way, that's looking so far ahead. I'm not saying that it isn't achievable, but that's just so far from today. We're still on today and trying to get guys better today and trying to figure things out, so we'll worry about that down the road."
On the defense's depth and how things may look with injuries:
"It's good to have those guys back out there and healthy. We're looking at a lot of different ways to move people around and see what's best because that's a big concern for us. We just have to figure out the best people to play and the best systems to play in because we don't just run a system no matter what and make players fit into that, we look at the players and who's the best to play and then form a system around them. That's why year in and year out we've looked different on offense and defense. I think this year on defense you're going to have a lot of that because we lost a lot of moving parts and some really key players. We're going to have some challenges there as we figure out what's the best way to play and how many lineman and linebackers and defensive backs can do that for us."
On what the progression of training camp will look like moving forward:
"We're just starting things out where it's going to be a lot more focused on the evaluation of players with how they're moving, how they're playing and where they're at from the last time we saw them. That's kind of how we'll be operating a lot of different positions like the quarterback thing. That's more important today so that eventually when that decision comes and having proven each player individually, it'll be a lot easier to get going."
On how he plans to get this year's team to buy in like last year's:
"That's a lot more challenging because I feel like we didn't lose a ton of players from year one to year two that had really significant roles compared to now in year two to year three. We were able to have two years with those guys. If you look at our guys now when you look on paper, the guys that you're saying are going to be significant players, a lot of them are brand new. There are times where we're running 7-on-7 or 8-on-8 and I'm looking at six out of eight people who didn't sign here out of high school and were transfers. That's just the challenge that we're into and we gotta make sure that we look into everything including whether we simplify our systems because so many people are new just so we can make sure that they're playing fast. We have a lot of work to do, and it's important culture-wise to stress to these guys that this is how we do things. It's like a blended family coming together that has a parent somewhere else. We're better, but we're different."
On if he's seen any progress in any specific areas so far:
"Well it's been half a day, so we'll see. It's the first day so usually everybody is just worried about getting back into the swing of things right now."
On how to balance keeping players healthy with figuring out who can really play:
"It's challenging and different year-to-year based off what you have returning and what you already know about them. If you've got a significant player that's returning and played a full year or two, you know you don't have to push as much. For all these new guys that still have to learn how to play in your system and together, it's like a basketball team with a lot of free agents where now we just have to play a lot of pick-up together."
On what his thoughts are on playing two quarterbacks:
"We're always going to look at everything and decide what's best for the team, not look at what we've done in the past or what we've done before. In general I think it's different for quarterbacks and people pull them too fast. It's not like a pitcher that then has some time and pitches again four days or games later. There's a lot of mental stuff when it comes to playing quarterback. To get pulled is a big deal, so to me we're going to make sure a guy has had every opportunity and that what's been going on is his fault. People pull people off of production like if a guy threw three picks, but then doesn't say well actually two of them were tipped or the receiver ran the wrong route, they just pull them because that's what I'm supposed to do so that I look good when I come in front of you guys after the game. That's not what we do around here."
On how crucial the first day of fall camp is to establish the tone for the remainder of the season:
"It's the only day we have. It's important. We always try to get better today. Again, we don't have pads on, and there's a ton of work to do. We're not making a lot of decisions out of today."
On if he thought his dog would become a recruiting tool:
"I think it's a lot of things. It may seem like this is planned and that this is their life. This was not. It looks pretty brilliant, actually, using the dog as a recruiting tool. College Gameday's already been here for a story on that down the line. It has its Twitter and Juicefest and all this. This was just my dog wanting followers, which I didn't really want."
On the evolution of Juice:
"I actually, as you asked that, things happen and you probably don't know why they happen with different things. You probably don't think that Juice would make me coach better, but we're at Wildrose Kennel now. Today's the third day. I don't know how to train a dog. I don't really do what they tell me to do. Juice is not really well behaved right now. Wildrose came and got him. He's on day three of training camp. They'll come get him in the morning and take him out. They give me a list of notes of this is what he does well, this is what he did today, and actually video the things. Actually this morning when meeting about it, there's so many similarities here to buying in and bringing people in to the culture because they'll call me saying, 'We're bringing him in.' All of the sudden he's around these other dogs and how well they're training has to do with a lot of the training with him, and him not being distracted by all the other things. He's going through the same thing we're going through. We're bringing people into the organization with transfers in. They've got to buy in. Here's a puppy that needs to be taken in over there with all these other dogs that have been training the whole time, and Juice isn't listening to what he needs to be doing. I kind of feel like that's some of our transfers right now."
On if Michael Trigg can me compared to Kyle Pitts:
"I wouldn't call him Kyle Pitts right now. He's got a lot of talent. He does have height, weight, speed combination that makes a great player, but he's got a long way to go. Again, some of these guys think they're older than they are because they transferred, and he just finished his true freshman year. He's got a very high ceiling with a lot of talent out there. I'd love for him to be a great player."
On the most important thing on the first day:
"I think because of the ratio of new players on the roster is really a lot of how we prepare and how we practice. Not as much seeing necessarily and getting everyone on the same page in that way. We had players out there today tackling people. There's a lot of work to do."
On balancing new players with the transfer portal:
"That's always a thing that's adjusting. I don't think that you say it's this many or this many, because there's too many variables. Guys leave early. Guys transfer. All of your players over this year before the next year's class comes, do you have the chance to see really good high school players go compete? If you're sitting there, then you're waiting on transfers. The better your program is and the more you win, the more you sign high school programs. You've got to see most elite programs aren't signing a bunch of transfers because they're just filling spots. They're not filling gaps because they've been there at a really high level for three or four years on their roster."
On being excited about the backfield:
"I'd say there's good and bad about everything. When you lose what you did so many players in the backfield and you have new ones, that's bad. But it's also good because you've got new ones to learn from. You may use them in a different ways than the last group. Just figuring out that out is exciting and fun to do. It's usually better having the whole team returning, but sometimes this makes you a better coach because you've got to figure new things out."
Players Mentioned
TE
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PRESSER | Sharif Denson (04-22-26)
Wednesday, April 22