Lane Kiffin on his dog retrieving kickoff tee: 'That was pretty neat'

Ole Miss put 73 points on the board while giving up just seven points to Mercer in Saturday’s season opener at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. And somehow, none of the Rebel players wound up being the star of the game. That honor goes to Juice Kiffin, the dog of head coach Lane Kiffin.

Usually, when a dog runs onto the field during an SEC game, officials are going to pause the game. Instead, Juice was used to retrieve a tee used for an Ole Miss kickoff. Moving at lightning pace, he originally overran the tee. However, it was eventually picked up and raced back to the sideline.

Funny enough, Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin had no idea Juice was going to be out there. He watched along with everyone else in attendance, watching Juice retrieve the tee.

“I can’t take any credit,” Kiffin said during his postgame press conference. “I didn’t even know it was happening. I was actually coming out and getting ready for the first kickoff. Coming down, I actually saw it, they didn’t even tell me… I’d seen him go out there and do it with ducks. I didn’t know he had done it with a kicking tee. So, actually happened to be going right by when it happened. So, that was pretty neat. But surprisingly, I did not have anything to do with that.”

🚨 PLAY OF THE GAME 🚨

@JuiceKiffin x #SCTop10 pic.twitter.com/PbD1FSp9Qs

— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) September 2, 2023

Everyone knows how good Kiffin is on social media. Whether he is subtweeting fellow SEC coaches, using the NCAA transfer portal, or recruiting for Ole Miss, Kiffin kills it. But the Juice Kiffin account may be the best of them all, giving his dog a personality the rest of the world can appreciate.

Juice even posted a reaction to his performance on Saturday, asking how many points it was worth. He’s still new to the game of football and needs to be explained the rules once again.

How many of our 52 points did I score on this play? Still new to football https://t.co/VxXTPSIJWE

— Juice Kiffin (@JuiceKiffin) September 2, 2023

Now, we get to see Juice participating in game day alongside his Dad. Even if he had nothing to do with the planning, Kiffin got a nice surprise like the rest of the Ole Miss crowd. Hopefully, we get to see Juice out there again in the near future. Using him as a tactic to get the fanbase riled up would only intensify the atmosphere on Saturdays. Especially when SEC opponents are in town.

But if it only occurs once, it will go down as a fun aspect of an impressive season opener in Oxford.