Lane Kiffin explains how Ole Miss can keep emotions in check after big win

Lane Kiffin and the Ole Miss Rebels picked up a much-needed marquee victory at home Saturday night against the LSU Tigers. The Rebels overcame a nine-point fourth quarter deficit to take down their SEC West foe 55-49.

With a win like that, undoubtedly, Ole Miss is riding high right now, heading into their Week 6 matchup against Arkansas. But, the Rebels will need to ground themselves quickly to ensure they do not have a slip-up against the Razorbacks. And on Monday, Kiffin explained how he is helping his team keep their emotions in check after the big win.

“I’m sure for two days they heard how great they were outside of here,” said Kiffin. “So (we) made sure they saw they made a lot of mistakes in that game in all three phases, way too many penalties organization, poor decisions, selfish decisions on some penalties because players are frustrated, and that can’t happen. So, we have a lot to work on.”

For the wrongs that Kiffin pointed out, Ole Miss did a lot of things right late in the game. Following a questionable touchdown ruling by the officials, which gave LSU a nine-point lead midway through the fourth quarter, the Rebels focused in to close out the game.

Ole Miss finished the game, scoring 15 unanswered points and stalling out the Tigers’ offense. The Rebels scored touchdowns on drives of 10 plays for 65 yards and eight plays for 88 yards while subsequentially forcing the Tigers to punt and keeping them out of the end zone on their final drive to end the game.

Still, as Kiffin highlighted, Ole Miss cannot afford to allow this colossal marquee victory to go to their head. It is still a long season ahead of them. And if they want to represent the SEC West in the conference championship game, they will need to find the same poise that they did against LSU for the remainder of their schedule.

Paul Finebaum says Kiffin picked up ‘signature’ win in game against LSU

On this Sunday’s episode of The Matt Barrie Show, he joined SEC Network host Paul Finebaum to discuss the fallout of Ole Miss‘ massive home victory over LSU.

Looking around at the SEC West and the conference as a whole, there’s really a path for the Rebels — and a slew of other squads — to make a run to the SEC title game, especially with Alabama a little bit down. Now, Ole Miss has already lost to Alabama, but with just one loss and a number of tests awaiting the Tide, that’s not an insurmountable deficit.

In fact, Barrie said on the show that Ole Miss “find themselves very much alive in a wide open SEC West,” to which Paul Finebaum agreed. He was stunned by the drastic improvement on the offensive side of the football for Lane Kiffin’s group.

“It was certainly one of the great reversal of fortunes we’ve ever seen,” he said. “Because a week ago, that team could not have looked any more ineffective. Lane Kiffin dialed up everything correctly.”