Lane Kiffin stresses importance of trust with quarterbacks amid Hugh Freeze comments

Lane Kiffin is never afraid to speak his mind on current topics in college football. Even when the Ole Miss head coach is not directly addressing something, he is finding a way to subtly make his opinion known when speaking. Making fun of SEC coaches might be Kiffin’s favorite hobby at this point.

On Monday, the importance of having trust in your quarterbacks was a topic in Oxford. This is the third year of Jaxson Dart being the Ole Miss starter but Kiffin went back to his early days with the program and Matt Corral. A six interception day against Arkansas back in 2020 did not mean Kiffin lost faith in his guy.

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“On the field, there’s a trust level there,” Kiffin said of Dart. “We spend a lot of time with them and then let him play on Saturdays. I think that you build that, especially for a guy we didn’t recruit out of high school, didn’t have a previous relationship. I think it pays off when you have a relationship and the quarterbacks trust you too.

“You go back to Matt Corral when he threw six interceptions and before I even got to media, sitting down with him and telling him ‘We got to do a better job calling plays. I got to coach better. Don’t worry, we got your back.’ I think that goes a long ways and it goes a long way with a kid in recruiting, knowing what they’re going to get when they get here from a relationship and they can trust us to have their back.”

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These comments come a couple of days after Auburn went through a similar situation. Hank Brown threw three interceptions and was replaced by Payton Thorne, who turned the ball over himself once. This was on top of the four interceptions Thorne threw during Auburn’s loss to Cal two weeks prior.

Hugh Freeze decided to criticize his quarterbacks during his postgame press conference. He claims the scheme is working well and just needs somebody to deliver the ball effectively.

“I know that there’s people open and I know that we’re running the football,” Freeze said on Saturday. “We’ve got to find a guy that won’t throw it to the other team and we’ve got to find running backs that hold on to it… The scheme is what most everybody in the country is running, some sort of. But you’ve got to have a good quarterback in whatever system you’re going to choose.”

Whether Kiffin ever admits it or not, his comments appear to be intentional. It’s no coincidence Auburn and Ole Miss are both fighting to flip 2026 four-star QB Duece Knight from Notre Dame at the moment either.

A well-timed answer from Kiffin as his team begins SEC play against Kentucky on Saturday. There will be no meeting with Auburn this season either, at least during the regular season.