Lane Kiffin's tempo, formation creativity will challenge Kentucky

Lane Kiffin has been a prominent name in football for a long time. Despite being fired from a couple of head coaching jobs, the 47-year-old has always been widely respected for his play-calling chops.

The former Tennessee and USC head coach was brought to Alabama to modernize Nick Saban’s offense and he did just that before moving to Florida Atlantic and amping up the tempo. After bringing home two C-USA titles in three years, the head coach is now seeing his offenses light the scoreboard up at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

Kiffin has produced consecutive top-20 offenses at Ole Miss, and his third team in Oxford is trending in that same direction. However, the ground game is doing much of the work through four games this season while the tempo sets the foundation.

“They’re going to go with an extremely high tempo. They are running the ball extremely effective,” Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops told reporters on Monday. “And when you run the ball like that, obviously it creates explosive plays in the pass game. They haven’t needed to rely on that as much in the first four games. Certainly, they can do a lot of things and be as balanced as they want to be.”

The Rebels will enter Saturday’s SEC contest at No. 10 in the Power Five in plays per game (74.5). That is slower than both 2020 (79.7) and 2021 (78.2) under Kiffin, but that could be due to a new-look approach. After never having a run play percentage higher than 58 percent, Ole Miss has seen that number jump to 65.1 percent in 2022. Kiffin’s offense runs the ball nearly as much as a service academy by using extreme spacing created by large wide receiver splits to create chunks of space in the running game.

It’s hard to blame this approach when you take a look at some of the data.

• 280.7 rushing yards per game (No. 4 nationally)
• 5.8 yards per rush (No. 8 nationally)
• 15 rushing touchdowns (No. 3 nationally)
• 13 run plays of 20+ yards (T-2 nationally)

The top three rushers for Ole Miss are all averaging over six yards per rush, and quarterback Jaxson Dart proved to be a threat against Tulsa by collecting 116 yards on 13 attempts. The efficiency and explosiveness combo of their ground attack can create a lot of problems for any defense to deal with.

“There’s so much deception,” Stoops said. “They’re so fast, and a lot of their pass game is off that. They still have a lot in their tank that they haven’t had to use. There’s a lot there that they can do. It’s where we have to be better. Much more disciplined, much more locked in on our assignments because there’s a lot going on. And off the run game, they’re play-action and wheels and verticals and different layers that they can throw out there. There’s a lot to it where they can strike fast.

In the passing game, Kiffin is not asking Dart to do too much as the USC transfer has only thrown the ball 87 times through four games, but the throws have produced positive plays. The former blue-chipper has a 48.2 percent passing success rate with 20 completions of 15-plus yards. Ole Miss has been able to create a pick-your-poison scenario for opposing defenses. It all starts with the tempo, but everything seems to be buoyed by Lane Kiffin’s play-calling talent.

“I think they’re very aggressive,” Stoops told reporters when asked what makes Kiffin such a good play-caller. “Their style and tempo definitely puts pressure on ya. Also, It’s a credit to him because you can see the way that they are adjusting and how creative they are in their run game this year because they have very talented running backs and they have a scheme where they can take it a lot of different ways. Very complex and creative with the ways they are creating space and then their play-action off of it.

Defensive coordinator Brad White will have his hands full this week at the Joe Craft Football Training Facility as Kentucky looks to fit a complex run game while also playing coverage in the backend to try and limit explosives from Ole Miss. However, things can get complicated when dealing with tempo. Kentucky’s communication, open-field tackling, gap control, and eye discipline must be on point while facing an offensive maestro on the opposite sideline.

“We know it’ll be a big challenge,” said Stoops.