Lane Kiffin reveals what he saw in Penn State's defensive approach

Heading into the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl, coach Lane Kiffin felt pretty confident about his scouting job and what his team would be up against when it took on Penn State.

In fact, just hours before the game began, Kiffin laid things out pretty bluntly for his team.

“We said, we’ve got matchups — we told them before the game,” Kiffin said. “This game will be won on offense in the one-on-one matchups at wide receiver and tight end. You guys are going to have to win the game on offense, making plays in the passing game, and they did it.”

Glance at the box score after the game with that in mind and you’d certainly assume Ole Miss won the game. Star tight end Caden Prieskorn hauled in 10 passes for 136 yards and two touchdowns. Stud receiver Tre Harris had seven catches for 134 yards.

Five others caught passes in the game, including quarterback Jaxson Dart. Suffice it to say, Ole Miss got cooking. But not necessarily quickly.

“Early on there was a little struggle there,” Lane Kiffin said. “Those guys have really good players. That No. 11 is an elite player. I’m sure he would have gone to the draft if he could because that guy’s a special player.

“So they gave us some problems there early, and really — I mean, really kind of made it basic and said, OK, we’re going to throw the ball quick because they’ve got really good rush, especially when they’re blitzing him.”

Once the Rebels began to speed things up, with Dart firing the ball out a little quicker, the team started to move the ball in chunks. The Rebels turned a halftime lead into a wide margin rather quickly in the third and fourth quarter.

All of that was what Ole Miss expected… if it could win the outside matchups.

“Just in studying and game planning, didn’t really feel in that conference they had played much tempo,” Kiffin said. “Obviously that’s part of what we do, and we were able to — that only works when you make first downs.

“So we made some plays, and we were able to get into some tempo situations where they weren’t aligned, and took advantage of that.”

Ole Miss racked up an impressive 540 total yards in the game, scoring 38 points to top Penn State 38-25 and win 11 games on the season. Just like Lane Kiffin predicted, the Rebels got the matchup they wanted and were able to exploit it all the way to a Peach Bowl win.