Matt Corral's lack of practice time showed Saturday vs. LSU

Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral remained questionable, at least publicly, right up until kickoff against LSU last weekend after suffering an injury the previous week. 

While the Heisman candidate had a few early hiccups, his head coach, Lane Kiffin, remains incredibly high on his quarterback and could not be more proud of how he has handled adversity this season. 

“He missed a few throws early as you probably noticed,” Kiffin said after Saturday’s 31-17 victory. “When you can’t push off, that’s kind of hard to play quarterback. And you could see he couldn’t move the same, and your rhythm’s off because you didn’t take all the reps like you normally would all week.” 

Ole Miss punted on their first first two drives, and Corral had a couple of incompletions plus took a sack. Corral and Co. turned it around relatively quickly after that and scored on five of their next six possessions, four touchdowns and a field goal. He finished 18-for-23 with 185 yards and two total touchdowns.

Corral making magic happen with depleted WR room

Kiffin has been trying to avoid using injuries as an excuse for his quarterback, but he can’t help but think about what Corral and the offense could do if receivers Jonathan Mingo and Braylon Sanders weren’t dealing with injuries.

“His starting group that I said at the beginning of the year would be the best three-receiver group in the country if they stayed healthy, and they haven’t, so he’s down to one out there,” Kiffin said.

Dontario Drummond is the “one.” He led Ole Miss with eight catches for 93 yards last Saturday.

“So the guy’s a warrior, guy’s awesome,” Kiffin said. “I wish we had all of the pieces around him because now you’re going to get Heisman numbers and all that stuff. You gotta watch the game. You don’t just get to sit back there and wait forever and throw to wide open people. So he’s awesome, and I don’t know where we’d be without him.”

Corral has 24 total touchdowns and just one interception this season, which leads the SEC.

Ole Miss is currently sitting at 6-1 and is through the more difficult part of their season. They still have ranked games against Auburn and Texas A&M remaining, but both teams have shown clear weaknesses this season. 

They travel to Auburn this weekend for a primetime game on ESPN. The game kicks off at 6:00 p.m. CT. Ole Miss is a 2.5-point underdog as of Wednesday afternoon.