Lane Kiffin comments on Ole Miss being 100 percent vaccinated

According to Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, 240 people in or around the Rebels football program have received the COVID vaccine. From purely a football standpoint, Kiffin believes that the full team being vaccinated will give them a competitive advantage.

Kiffin: It wasn’t easy to get everyone vaccinated

For Kiffin, the road to getting the entire program to get the vaccine was a long one. He says that he believes it will protect what Ole Miss is trying to do on the football field.

“So proud of the vaccination part,” Kiffin said on Monday’s Ole Miss media day. “Our players, staff, everyone in contact with our players, which is a lot of people. It’s over 240 people. I think that shows a lot about their safety but also about their commitment to each other. Not just to protect themselves but to protect bringing something in here. That took a while to get tot hat point and I think it’s really neat. I think it’s a good message to the rest of the state and other people. Do what you emphasize. It’s great to see.”

The most important part of the process for Ole Miss was communication. Kiffin said that he wanted the players to understand the rules in place.

“As we get closer, for kids, just communicating with them the importance of it and also the rules,” Kiffin said. “Just making sure they understood. You’re not vaccinated and you’re in close contact, you can do all this work – weight room, playbook, practice, everything – and show up and get shut down because you’re in close contact and miss a game. If you had the shot and you’re in close contact, you’re not. It’s not just getting it, it’s losing time otherwise.

“It was a lot of work by our staff. Our coaches started it, our coaches being 100 percent. So we’re not going to tell them something to do and our staff’s not 100 percent; that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I think that helped them too, knowing that their coaches had all done it. Then it kind of just spread through the building.”

Getting everyone to agree went beyond players themselves

According to Kiffin, parents and family members had a role in the decision-making process for some players.

“That was a while,” Kiffin said when asked about getting everyone to agree. “And like I said, that was a lot of work and a lot of different conversations. And sometimes – you know these are kids – it was not just a conversation with them. They were okay with it but it would be a parent or a relative that wasn’t. So we didn’t get to 100 percent until right towards the end.

“I just think as it got closer to that, kids saw the reasons that everybody else was doing for their team. I don’t want to get into a big argument on what’s right and what’s wrong, but I think it’s irresponsible not to. So, I know I’ll be criticized for that but I think it is – in being a college football player.”

Kiffin pointed out that he is speaking solely from a football point of view. For Kiffin, he believes that being vaccinated as a football team directly benefits them in the event that a situation arises.

“This is different than a normal job,” Kiffin said. “You’re coming in, you’re near these guys. You’re impacting people’s ability to play the games on certain weeks and getting shut down. This is not a normal job where you can just stay home and zoom in on Saturday.”

Image courtesy of: Wesley Hitt via Getty Images.