No. 6 Ole Miss didn’t have much trouble dispatching The Citadel back home with a loss and now the Rebels are two wins away from going to the College Football Playoff.
But that’s still three weeks away and there was plenty for Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin to talk about after a 49-0 win. Here’s everything Kiffin said in his post-game press conference.
Opening statement…
All right, really pleased how the starters played today. Those are challenging games to really get up for and execute the way that we did. I always think first downs tell a lot of how the game is going and how guys have prepared 35 to 5 first downs. There’s a lot of guys doing things really well. So, guys really answered our challenge. You know that it was the first game of the year. No other games matter and come out with that same energy regardless of crowd, network, time of game, any of that. And they really did. I wish our backup offense would have done better, but everybody else, including backup defense, really had a really good day.
On being part of a midgame marriage proposal…
Yeah, I didn’t know I’d be part of that, but, you know, things happen here in the Sip, you know? So, I actually said after on the headset, like, maybe they were mad, actually. Maybe they were like, why did you come in here? And someone on the headset said, no, no, no, it’s Mississippi. They liked it. So, that was cool. That was just really, I didn’t know what was going on at all, you know, and then happened to notice it. Someone on the headset said it and so noticed up there. So, that was really cool. And then how the crowd cheered for them. That was neat.
On Trinidad Chambliss…
Trinidad really challenged him to say, okay, let’s play really efficient today. Let’s not try to go for big plays and, you know, let’s have a really good day, not stat-wise for stats, but efficiency-wise, which you can show in stats, obviously, 29 to 33 with a drop. You know, I thought he did really well. Obviously, our plan, as you can probably tell now, was we were going to throw it around, not run him, you know, to really get the timing of that, get our receivers some touches, and so it worked out really well. I thought Austin had some really good throws. You know, Caden lost that one in the sun. That was an elite throw that he made. So, that was good that he got some action in there.
On Kewan Lacy tying single-season rushing TD record…
Yeah, it says a lot, just a true sophomore and 10 games in. I didn’t realize that, but, you know, to have the record. Our offensive line’s done a really good job this year, really improved from the beginning of the year, and he’s an elite runner, and, you know, probably would have a few more today if we’d have left him in.
On how winning like this helps in future games…
A lot. You know, that was the challenge, and you guys probably covered this. You know, these games don’t always go like this, like people think they’re going to go, especially later in the year. A lot of times they do early, but not later, and guys come out flat, and I think we played them in ‘05 and here, and just a close game, and then had to score, I think, 21 second half to go 27-7. So, these things happen where these guys hang around and then nobody feels good about it afterwards, and so, just talked a lot about that all week. You know, what is your standard? Is the standard the standard regardless, like I said, who the team is, what network is on, how many people show up in the crowd? You know, do you need that stuff to play really well, or are you an elite competitor that none of that matters? And they answered that today.
On scheduling an FCS opponent late in the season…
I think the schedule was amazing, the way it was set up, and obviously, Keith allowed that to happen, and so it’s a really, really good setup that I think, I just think nowadays is different. You know, everybody used to want them up front and, you know, work things out on their team, and, you know, you’ve got this portal there and how kids think and to be able to play a number of kids at this time of year, plus the SEC is so tough. Rarely ever do you see an SEC lopsided game. You’ve got a lot of players that don’t get to play, and so to have one here, we’re able to do that in the second half, they come more alive in practice, allows your play counts to come down on your other guys, so I think it’s really good and not wasting any time, but, you know, one of the other problems of going to nine SEC games, you know, you only got three, and so this is a really good setup.
On tight ends…
Yeah, we have really good tight end depth. It’s a great position, better than we’ve ever had here. We’ve really not had depth like that at a position here really in general, so offensively, so that’s been really good. We’ve got good depth receiver-wise, and so it allowed us. Daquan could have went back in. His x-rays were fine and just chose not to, and same with Echols.
