Lane Kiffin further explains his in-game conversations with Texas A&M players, how Ole Miss benefited

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin admitted after his team’s win over Texas A&M that the game was personal for him because of offseason comments made by Jimbo Fisher, calling him and Nick Saban clowns. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the game got heated and tense at times.

Throughout the game, Texas A&M had numerous players go down with apparent injuries, before shortly rejoining the game. It would be inappropriate to accuse them of faking injuries or cramps to mess with Ole Miss’ tempo. However, that kind of thing does happen in the sport. It clearly upset Lane Kiffin, though, who was seen shouting at Texas A&M players.

“Our staff was all complaining about all the injuries, you know, by them,” Lane Kiffin said. “They had nine defensive injuries that stopped the clock that they stayed down for a very long time, as we all saw, it’s not like they jumped right up.”

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“So, obviously, that’s usually frustrating for us as a tempo, especially when eight of the nine returned–a number of them the next play after sitting out a play. So, I said, ‘Hey, guys, let’s look at the positive. What they did let Q [Quinshon Judkins] rest.’ So, every time they had those injury timeouts, Q got to rest and was able to carry the ball 34 times,” Lane Kiffin said.

In other words, every time Texas A&M got to rest and the ability to regroup because of a stoppage, so did Ole Miss. This helped them to run Quinshon Judkins for 205 yards on the ground.

Lane Kiffin was also open about teasing a Texas A&M player for potentially faking injuries. He sarcastically described the players who went down and returned to the game as “amazing stories,” even.

“So, I know I got some play about messing around with their DB [Bryce Anderson] and stuff, but that’s–the game’s emotional. I was having fun with him because he was another one of the amazing stories where he’d been out the play before and, you know, play was over and all of a sudden he looks to the sidelines and he went down. Then, he’s back the next play,” Lane Kiffin said.

“So, I’d been joking with him for a little bit there.”

Lane Kiffin on Texas A&M’s high number of defensive stoppages

Following the game, Lane Kiffin was upset about what he interpreted as players faking injuries to get defensive stoppages. However, he was less willing to speak too deeply about what he saw during the game.

“I mean, I’m not gonna get very far into it, but you guys saw whatever it was. It was eight, I think, defensive injury timeouts–all on defense,” Lane Kiffin said.

“So, you know, whatever. It is what it is. There’s a way around the rule, and I’m not gonna say they did it but I mean what are the analytics of that happening and then seeing the players like a play or two later back out there?”

Jimbo Fisher declined to respond

Jimbo Fisher was asked to respond to the incident involving Lane Kiffin and Bryce Anderson on the field. However, Fisher declined to get involved in the dispute.

“I’m not going to get into all of that,” Jimbo Fisher said. “The league and everybody else can handle how they want to handle that.”

It seemed like Fisher wanted to say something else, but stopped himself, saying, “Nevermind, I’ll be quiet.”