Lane Kiffin discusses watching Ole Miss game from home, takes another shot at refs

Following his team’s 43-24 victory over Louisville to close out Week 1 of college football, Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin had plenty to say about what it was like to watch his team from home after testing positive for COVID-19.

“Obviously unusual not being there, so a lot of anxiety building up to that because you’re not in control,” Kiffin said. “I did everything we could: Zoomed into everything, all the meetings, talked to them at pregame meal and all that stuff.

“Just really proud of our players and coaches to handle a curveball like that and go play on the national stage really well against a quality team that gave people a lot of problems a year ago. You look at what these guys did to Notre Dame. They shut down Notre Dame for most of the game. So, good first win, good start.”

Last season, the Rebels led the SEC with 555.5 yards per game. They exceeded that number Monday night, posting 569 yards of total offense. After Week 1, Corral leads SEC quarterbacks in yardage and has jumped into the Heisman conversation.

Kiffin had additional thoughts on Monday night, even suggesting it would be best if he just coached from home since, clearly, it worked.

Kiffin not done with jokes about officiating crew

The one negative Kiffin saw in his team’s performance on Monday night? Penalties.

“Obviously, we gotta clean up penalties, but that’s easier to clean up than not being able to get open or not being able to get a pass rush,” Kiffin said.

The Rebels were penalized 14 times for 125 yards, including two first-half targeting calls. After calling out the Big Ten officiating crew at halftime for what he believed were bad calls, Kiffin doubled down in the presser.

“Some really good things in the game to build on and some things to work on, too,” Kiffin said. “Obviously, we gotta learn how to tackle differently, especially if we go to the Big Ten.”

Kiffin’s Week 1 trolling extended well beyond Ole Miss-Louisville

The referees in his team’s game weren’t the only ones getting a healthy dose of Kiffin’s commentary this weekend. 

After LSU head coach Ed Orgeron heckled a UCLA fan over their “sissy blue” jerseys, Kiffin took to Twitter to let the world know he was laughing. When LSU subsequently lost to the Bruins, Kiffin continued the banter, tweeting about both UCLA’s new Twitter photo and making a reference to his team’s light blue jerseys.