Nick Saban describes what Lane Kiffin is like after a loss

One of today’s marquee contests will be played between LSU and Ole Miss, with both entertaining College Football Playoff hopes but needing to avoid a second loss. For Rebels coach Lane Kiffin, it’s a chance to continue to get right.

Ole Miss suffered its first two weeks ago when it fell at home to Kentucky, a brutal blow for the morale of the team. Handling that loss and preventing it from turning into multiple losses has to be considered key to the team’s forward-looking hopes.

The good news is the Rebels are well-equipped to handle it, and ESPN College GameDay touched on that topic on Saturday morning.

Specifically, Nick Saban was asked what Lane Kiffin is like after a loss and how good a job he can do rallying the team.

“They bounced back well against South Carolina,” Saban pointed out. “Lane’s a good coach. He’s going to do a great job of calling plays. He’ll know how to attack their defense and he’s a great, great playcaller.”

Being a great play-caller is one thing. Getting a team properly motivated and ready to play each week is another.

Lane Kiffin failed to do the latter against Kentucky, and that’s one of the reasons the team’s margin for error is significantly slimmer now. Can Kiffin learn from whatever went wrong that week and shore up the preparation going forward?

That’ll be key. Especially in a thoroughly hostile environment.

“At night in Death Valley when they have still something to play for, that’s a dangerous thing to deal with,” Kirk Herbstreit said. “And I think the Ole Miss offensive line — Blake Baker the defensive coordinator from LSU, he’ll give you a lot of different exotics. If he can get (Jaxson) Dart into third down, huge advantage in Baton Rouge cranking that defense up and getting pressure.”

Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss and LSU are set to square off at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday with a broadcast on ABC.