Lane Kiffin on how limited practice reps could impact Matt Corral, Ole Miss

Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral has been dealing with a nagging ankle injury for multiple weeks. Corral did not practice ahead of last week’s game against Liberty, and he hasn’t practiced much this week either. Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin said that Corral missing practice limits the team offensively, and is certainly “not ideal.”

“He didn’t practice last week so we’ve kind of gotten used to this,” Kiffin said of Corral. “It limits what we do obviously and what we can call in the game. Practice is important no matter who you are, especially the quarterback for a lot of reasons. So that is not ideal at all obviously.

“He said after the game, injured vs. hurt. Young players seeing him play through that, pretty powerful and pretty unique nowadays.”

Despite playing through the injury last week, Corral had a solid performance. In the Rebels’ 27-14 victory, Corral completed 20 of his 27 passes for 324 yards and a touchdown.

Corral hasn’t had a chance to properly let his ankle recover

As college football season is in the final weeks of the regular season, there aren’t any more bye weeks. That means that Corral hasn’t gotten a real chance to truly recover from his ankle injury. Earlier in the week, Kiffin said that Corral pretty much re-aggravates his injury every time he takes the field for Ole Miss.

“I hope not,” Kiffin said when asked if Corral would continue to deal with the nagging injury. “The problem is it’s not like there’s a bye sitting in there, so he kind of has reaggravated it every Saturday. I think this week will be very similar to last week, but hopefully eventually that’s not the case.”

Corral, an early season Heisman favorite, has cooled off after his dominant start to the year. On the season, he has thrown for 2,527 yards, 16 touchdowns, and two interceptions. He also has 528 rushing yards and ten scores on the ground. Corral leads Ole Miss in rushing.

Kiffin appreciates Corral’s toughness and dedication to Ole Miss. Some players in Corral’s shoes might just sit and try to recover, while also trying to avoid further injury to preserve his potential NFL Draft stock. But Corral wasn’t willing to sit on the sideline last week.

“I kinda talked to him late in the week because a lot of quarterbacks wouldn’t play, especially nowadays,” Kiffin said. “With everybody in their ear saying ‘You’re already a first-round pick, don’t get injured worse. You don’t need to play in this game.’ That’s kind of the age we’re in, most of these kids don’t play nowadays. So the fact that he didn’t even question that — ‘I’m not letting this team down, I’m playing no matter what,’ — [that] says a lot about him.”

Ole Miss hosts Texas A&M at 7 p.m. ET on Saturday night.