No. 7 Ole Miss successfully completed step one of its four-step plan to get a spot in the College Football Playoff on Saturday with a 30-14 win against South Carolina.
Afterwards, coach Lane Kiffin held his post-game press conference. Here are the five best quotes he said:
On offensive struggles…
Said actually afterwards on the TV interview, just came out, but probably true is, I felt like our fans and our defense showed up today. Our offense in the passing game really didn’t. We had some really bad rhythm. I did think our offensive line did some good things. You know, third downs were not good. Now, a number of those were in some four-down situations where we didn’t make, you know, three really critical fourth-down conversions, but inconsistency in the passing game, and that started in the third quarter. You know, we ran great in the first half and threw okay, but in the third quarter, they really started playing a lot of man and stopping the run, and you got to beat them in the passing game when they do that. So, we didn’t for a little bit there, and Trinidad was a little off today, and so when that happens, you need to run the ball really well and play good defense.
On Trinidad Chambliss…
(Bad days) happens. Everybody’s not going to play great, you know. Same thing, whatever sports you guys go play, golf, tennis, whatever, you know. You don’t play the same every time. Sometimes you just have some days you’re off a little bit, and when you have that, you need to have your defense play well and your running game play well, and I think we have a really good feel for that, and don’t just call plays when we feel that. You know, I feel that down there, and then we take the ball out, take the air out of the ball a little bit and get what you would call conservative, so it’s not as exciting to watch. I think we got booed once, I understand. I felt the same way, but you’re playing in the game because you’re understanding the game, that you’re playing really well on defense. The last thing you want to do is throw a pick and turn it over and then start getting in a sack game, which is what they feed off of. The team feeds off of sacks, especially with number six, and we gave none up today, and part of that was by being conservative.
On the post-interception penalties…
I probably got us a penalty there at the end, you know, because I was just excited, you know, that we made an interception. You know, those don’t happen a lot around here lately, and so when we did, and the student section was right there, I just told the guys to go down. I didn’t tell them to jump into the stands. They did that and got the penalty, and then they were getting the penalty, so I just threw the ball up there, too. Like, they’re not going to give us two penalties, so. You know, sometimes you got to have fun.
On how far his throw went into the stands…
I don’t know. I’m glad you didn’t see it. I kind of looked stupid. I was like, I shouldn’t have done that. I was just like, we’re already getting a penalty, so whatever. I like our students, man. They come. They got great energy. They were there, whenever we got here two hours before the game, and they were already in there, so I told our guys, just like after the words, words to go down there, thank them. I just really like that relationship that we have with our players and our students and how they show up.
On the fake punt…
The fake punt was just something we saw on film that felt we could roll out there, and that they wouldn’t be there, and even when it was whatever, fourth and ten early, you know, we were going to do it the first one, so good job by our special teams coaches.
