Lane Kiffin responds to question whether team was distracted by rumors connecting him to Auburn

Ole Miss started the season off 7-0, but the Rebels have lost three of their last four games after losing 42-27 against Arkansas on Saturday. After the loss, a reporter asked Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin if rumors linking him to the open job at Auburn could be distracting his team.

Kiffin didn’t get too far into that question, but he did turn things around on the game itself. He acknowledged that Arkansas is a strong team, and their performance on Saturday in itself had more to do with the result than any outside distractions facing the Ole Miss program.

“I don’t know. I mean a lot of analytics about Alabama hangovers,” Kiffin said when asked about distractions. “Ask LSU who came in here last week and whatever, scored 13 points against these guys. So maybe there was some of that. But I think really we didn’t play well on defense, obviously, and we didn’t play well on offense in a lot of areas.

“We didn’t finish drives and had three turnovers. It takes doing a lot of good things well too to get 700 yards in an SEC game. Sounds weird to even say that you rushed for 460 yards and you lose a game. But had some turnovers and not stopping it on the other side.”

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As Kiffin mentioned, Ole Miss rushed for 463 yards against Arkansas behind 200-yard performances from both Quinshon Judkins and Zach Evans. The Rebels weren’t able to keep up with Arkansas, though, and fell short to fall to 8-3 overall on the season.

More on Kiffin, Auburn rumors

After Auburn fired head coach Bryan Harsin, the search has been on for the new leader of the Tigers program. Most believe that Lane Kiffin is on the very top of Auburn’s wish list. He did directly address those rumors after the game, saying that he’s very happy at Ole Miss and excited about the future of the Rebels program.

“I’m very happy here…Very happy here and appreciative of the leadership here,” Kiffin said. “I love being here. There’s a lot of people coming back (next year), a lot of good guys coming back. Very excited about the future.

“Like I said, I love being here. I mean, I don’t want to look to next year already with a regular season game (remaining), but this is not one of those years where you say we’re gonna lose all these guys. There’s a lot of people coming back and a lot of new guys offensively, especially. So, very excited about the future.”

Ole Miss takes on Mississippi State on Thursday to wrap up its regular season.