Lane Kiffin shares what Matt Corral means to him, Ole Miss

Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral means a lot to Lane Kiffin and the Rebels football program. Following Saturday’s 31-17 victory over Vanderbilt, Kiffin talked about Corral’s significance to the team and his role in the turnaround at Ole Miss.

“A ton,” Kiffin said of what Corral means to the Ole Miss program. “I think that I get a lot of credit for coming in here and what’s happening. The change and the wins and losses and all that stuff compared to where it was before. I would argue that he deserves more credit than me for that as the head coach vs quarterback. This guy’s there when I’m not even in there in summer workouts when we can’t be there. 6 a.m. and all that.”

Kiffin: Corral has ‘taken over’ the Ole Miss locker room

Corral has completed 67.5 percent of his passes this year for 3,100 yards, 19 touchdowns and three interceptions. He also has 133 rushing attempts for 552 yards and ten touchdowns. But Kiffin said that Corral has played a pivotal role in the Ole Miss locker room as a leader.

After Ole Miss struggled offensively against Vanderbilt, Corral wasn’t content with just getting the win. Kiffin said that it was cool to see Corral leading the locker room after the win.

“And I think he’s had a lot to do with changing the mindset of people around here and I think we’ve helped him with that,” Kiffin said. “I think he kind of has taken over for us in the locker room. Afterwards I took a few minutes before to figure out, okay I’m going to go on like I would if this was in the middle of the season and rip them. Say, ‘You know we’re not supposed to play Vanderbilt this close the way Vanderbilt was this year.’ I kind of came in and said all right, I’m not going to do that because I do it too much to them.

“And it was really cool. Matt had the offense over before I got there and he was basically doing what I wanted to do and ripping them from up and down and said ‘don’t you guys dare go out tonight. Don’t do anything. That’s embarrassing how we’re playing. This ain’t gonna happen again because if we do we’re gonna get our ass kicked next week.’ So that’s pretty cool when a player takes over doing what he knows you were probably gonna say. That was good. I kind of went more on the accolades of senior day and winning and undefeated season and those things and program turnaround for these guys and grateful to the seniors for that. So pretty neat to see.”

Ole Miss is now 9-2 on the season. The Rebels take on Mississippi State next week to wrap up the regular season.