Everything Lane Kiffin said after Ole Miss beat Mississippi State

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin spoke with the media after the Rebels beat Mississippi State, 26-14, to win the Egg Bowl. Here’s everything he said in his press conference.

Opening statement: “Really happy for our fans, players that played here before. This is obviously, as you guys know, a huge game in this state, and it’s hard for players or coaches, really, until you get here to understand that. Now being in five of them, I understand that, but I think our players probably felt that early with some of the new players to understand even though we told them a million times, records don’t matter. It happens in these games. Weird things happen in these Egg Bowls, and it really doesn’t matter that you happen to be the No. 1 passing team coming in. Well, that stuff doesn’t mean anything and the game kind of started that way. Give Lebby credit. They had them ready to go. They did a good job offensively early and he took risks, which is what you got to do as an underdog. So, I respect that. You know, a fake punt and another fourth down conversion for the touchdown on the same drive got them some momentum. Otherwise you only score one time the whole day. So, happy our guys finished I guess, 16-0, I guess, you know, to end the game. 

“We gave up the explosive play down to the 1. I thought that that was really neat, you know, because so often, especially against tempo teams, they just run it in. For our guys to make four plays in a row to stop them there even though we were up 12, you know, could have just let them score. I thought that that was really for me that was a really cool memory for that to happen in this game. Game was probably different than a lot of people would have thought. But those guys came in and played three safeties deep, like a prevent defense. That was hard to throw the ball in and make you run the ball. So we did that, 51 carries and only 24 pass attempts. It probably looked different to everybody, but we just had to play a little different style in order to win. And that’s a little bit conservative. But at the same time, too, we had no turnovers. They had three. That was a big difference in the game. 

“So happy for our seniors, I guess that’s 38 wins for the four year guys, 44 wins for the five year guys. I think they left a mark here. It’s masking tape up there when we had a speaker, Kevin Elko, that was close with my dad and actually did my dad’s funeral and he put masking tape up there because he talked about masking tape leaves behind when you go to pull it off. It leaves a mark, it leaves a legacy and I really just noticed that again this week when I was talking about these seniors and these guys that were here that they left a legacy. I know screwed up last week so take off the focus of that and look at the whole product of what they’ve done. They came here four previous seasons and they averaged five wins, four wins, five wins, five wins and they came here not knowing whether Ole Miss was going to be great and they were a huge part of this run that hopefully go win our postseason game and get to ten wins three of the last four years. So I’m really happy for those guys and proud and especially in a time that people don’t stay, players don’t stay for these guys that stayed through this even though their careers probably weren’t exactly perfect as they had planned. I’m truly happy for those guys. 

“The quarterback, you know, he’s just awesome. There’s a way you want your son to be, that’s what you want to have. Complete team player. Doesn’t care about stats anything and he could care less that he threw for 143 yards today you saw the way he ran, his emotion at the end of the game, just tried to help keep him keep keep it together because he cares, man. He cares about this team, he cares about this university and that doesn’t happen a lot in college football anymore if you if you look around. This guy’s special. I hope people appreciate him. He became the all-time leader passing Eli in the history of the school and the most wins in the history of the school for a quarterback. So I’m sure there’s appreciation, but I hope everybody has appreciation for what they watch with this guy and how he plays the game. And the guy’s playing with a bad ankle the whole time too.”

On the emotions with Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart at the end: “Yeah, it really wasn’t a planned thing. I usually walk off pretty quick and sometimes I think after those, that I don’t necessarily stay in the moment enough, especially for guys that are kinda last time on a field. I just wanted to find him and just tell him how much I appreciated him. I didn’t realize the camera was rolling because I hadn’t started the interview yet. He just said he loved me and started crying. So that kind of got to me. So I was trying to be the coach and get him to stop crying. But that’s who he is, man. Again, that’s a lost generation, whatever, in college football now. That guy’s a passion, that guy plays the way that like Tom Luke talks about this rivalry. The way he talks about how it used to be and how much. Tom won’t drive a maroon rental car, will not. Won’t step foot in one. Won’t let anyone give him a ride in one. That’s how Jaxson Dart plays the game. So he’s just really special. So I just wanted to go find him and tell him thanks.”

On guys like JJ, Jared Ivey, and Jordan Watkins, they all came here before the 2022 season, that transfer class and what they meant to Ole Miss: “A lot. Again, stayed through, and they helped bring other people in, and had some highs and lows. A lot of highs. They had the year where we were kind of low or whatever, we were 8-1, 9-1, whatever it was, or have Alabama here to go to 8-1 or something with the ball. And then they screw up after that, you know, and then so it could have been the program sliding off, and they helped bring it back and go to 10 wins the next season or 11 wins the next season. So it’s just awesome. It’s such a better story in life when you don’t just go somewhere and things are already going and you’re just part of it, whether that’s a corporation, a team, whatever. Like, can you just plug and play and like, okay, I’m here, and then they were winning championships before, and now I’m winning them. When you’ve come where a place has been down and not been winning, and I said to these senior guys that have been here forever, they reminded me of their Egg Bowl the year before we got here, the ending of that and losing that. Now to turn the programs toward they’re going into a game as a huge favorite in the Egg Bowl, and looking at going 9-3 and people upset at that. That’s perspective of where it came in five years because of these guys. So I just think it’s really special when you go do something that hasn’t been done before somewhere. 

On Ole Miss’ stance in the College Football Playoff race: “I don’t know, I’m not gonna really do that. Watch the games tomorrow and see how that unfolds and maybe then, you know, but I don’t know, I’m kind of – was lost in this game and just making sure we won this game. On the radio show, really, my comments about the SEC, it’s just – so I’m not going to politic for us, but the SEC is just different. It’s different when you play. It’s different when you go and play these places. You’ve got to go play on the road like those three upsets last week that are on senior day at three of probably the hardest 10 places in the country to play. At these other conferences, might go the whole year not playing in a place like that. So, it’s just different.”

On Jaxson Dart breaking Eli Manning’s record: “I’ve kind of stayed away from stats this year a lot. So probably haven’t really figured that out, thought very much about that, breaking that record. The theme was to try to keep all these kind of high profile guys out of the stat worlds and playing for a team and playing for each other. So I really hadn’t even thought about it till they played it on the loudspeakers or whatever. So it’s really neat, really cool, obviously a phenomenal player that he passed. But I don’t give a whole lot of that because I’m sure Eli would probably tell you they didn’t have tempo. So he’d probably say if they had tempo, then he wouldn’t have passed his record. So Jaxson gets more snaps probably.”

On if he saw the toughness, leadership in Jaxson Dart when he arrived at Ole Miss: “We saw some of that in his high school film, the style that he played, and then really just getting to know his parents. Usually awesome kids come from awesome parents, and whether that’s how they play, mom runs marathons, and trains every day. Dad was a great defensive player at Utah, so that personality’s in there. But then you have this whole other side. I mean, they’re here yesterday. They brought blankets that they had, they brought from Utah, these really awesome blankets that they brought, and hand delivered Jaxson’s walking up the stairs with his parents, taking them to every single coach up here, just thanking them for helping Jaxson. So they’re just a really cool family. I’m fortunate to have met them.”

On what Jaxson Dart told the Ole Miss team said this week to respond to circle the wagons: “He just showed leadership throughout the week, but that game gets hard in the defense that they’re playing because we’re not a great running team. So you’ve got to be patient in that, and the quarterback’s got to be patient. That defense with the three safeties, as it was going on in the game, like for those who’ve been in a long time, that’s the defense Arkansas played against us when we threw like seven turnovers, six interceptions. He’d come off being a great offense and a huge week against Alabama, and then all of a sudden, it just, you know, kept everybody back. So you got to be really patient at quarterback. Can’t get frustrated. You can’t try to make too many plays down the field and you got to take vertical scrambles like he did today, and we had to run him some too against that defense. So he just did a great job of handling the situation.”

On Tre Harris’ status moving forward after injury: “Yeah, he was down. He’s an awesome competitor, to go back out there last week, and whatever, a 1% chance he’d hit on the exact spot of the injury. This has just been a strange year. So obviously, I wish we were better than 9-3. But a lot of strange things happened this year. You got every game, you go 0-for-3 in 1-score games. Every other game multiple score wins. Tre only played one full SEC game. Right before the season, we have a receiver and a running back that should be really star players in our system end up being ineligible. So it’s just been kind of a strange year. I always think about the Kentucky game, we force the fumble and it bounces to them for the touchdown or everything’s different. So, it is what it is, strange year, strange things happen and the Tre injuries are really unfortunate. 

On what the coaches said this week: “It was good that we talked about that during the week because sometimes these guys think, okay, well, the records would show we’re just going to go blow them out, you know. And so your job as a coach is to teach them they ain’t going to necessarily go that way and it hadn’t gone that way in some of their games, too. These guys hung around, look at Texas right before half. Georgia ends up being a 10-point game, and these guys had started fast on offense. So to think that you’re just gonna come in and blow them out because of the records, that just usually doesn’t happen. So it was good they were prepared for this to be tough.”

On Ole Miss rushing attack with Ulysses Bentley IV: “Yeah, that was awesome. I mean, huge momentum play for that ball to break and him to make that play. I was so happy for him and the team at that time. So it’s really good that you never know when it’s gonna happen. Like I said during the week, when we got all the questions about it, guy’s been awesome, been a complete team guy, you know, and then answered when his number was called today.” 

On what changed for Ole Miss to give Bentley that workload: “Well, I just felt the pressure from you guys, you know. Where’s that guy? Is he not here today? Oh, okay. So he complained about Bentley and he didn’t show up. So, no. Different games are different. This may not make a lot of sense to you. You play different people by styles and also the defense that you play and how you kind of think things are going to evolve. And your matchups up front and does it create space versus penetration? And so sometimes you go with different players. It’s kind of like in basketball when people play different rotations and stuff. And then obviously when somebody hits one, you know, like it’s a long run, you’re going to go back to them more.”

On Ole Miss defense stepping up in 2nd half: “Those plays right there was kind of like the game a little bit. You know, we’re giving up these deep balls, you know, go routes, which is what Lebby throws a bunch of. And we give up a deep one into the slot, down to the one, but we don’t break, you know, we stop them after that. So, the defense has done that a lot this year, you know. Given up some explosive plays, but then we’ve answered the call in a number of times kind of in the second half. Maybe like Oklahoma game here, you know, where we give up some early and then we shut it down in the second half. Really, they score their 14 points in the last play of the first quarter. So they don’t score again for the next three quarters.”