Everything Lane Kiffin said before Ole Miss vs. Duke

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin spoke on Wednesday ahead of the Gator Bowl vs. Duke. Here’s what he said at the fireside chat with Blue Devils head coach Manny Diaz.

MODERATOR: This is the first-ever meeting between Duke and Ole Miss. Let’s start with Coach Manny Diaz, also Coach Lane Kiffin from Ole Miss.

Let’s have a seat, talk some ball, talk some stuff. A lot of people may not know, Coach Kiffin, that you have a history with Jacksonville. In 2000 you were here with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Talk about that memory.

LANE KIFFIN: Yeah, I was. It was interesting coming over the bridge today. First time I’ve ever been back. I was here as a young quality control coach with Tom Coughlin. Dom Capers was the defensive coordinator that I worked for.

It was a really neat year here, and great place to be back to.

LANE KIFFIN: Yeah, I never knew that story. Crazy how things work. I had a little advantage. My dad and Pete went a long ways back. Kind of a trump card there on you.

THE MODERATOR: Coaching is such a fraternity. You guys all know each other and know if you don’t know the person, then you know someone who knows somebody.

You’ve done both professional and college, obviously you love the college game. Talk a little bit about that, and kind of talk about what Coach Diaz was talking about in terms of the coaching part versus the constant, constant rule changes going on in our game.

LANE KIFFIN: Yeah, it’s changed, like Manny talked about. Just a few years ago to now has completely changed. Now I have a roster as they come out in the morning for breakfast, okay, making sure he’s not in the portal, he’s not in the portal, he’s not opted out. I’m just happy if they’re out there now every day. It’s totally changed. The schedule has changed. It is what it is.

On Coach Diaz, have great respect. Even though we’ve never worked together, always have looked at his defense as very aggressive. He’s been able to go in wherever he has and immediately change their defense statistically and how hard they play, and now he’s got a whole team doing it as a head coach.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, you’ve got a special relationship with your quarterback, and you have had a great quarterback room while you’ve been at Ole Miss. Talk about Jaxson and what he’s meant to your program as you have had two great years in a row with him.

LANE KIFFIN: Yeah, Jaxson has been an amazing leader to come in over the three years, set a bunch of school records, I think most wins and most yards and those things.

But his impact and his legacy that he leaves in the younger players is amazing, and the younger quarterbacks.

He’s been great. I think a lot of these games, non-playoff games, we see so many players opt out of playing that are going to be draft picks, and I think for him to come out right away and saying he’s playing impacted a lot of our other players. I think a lot of times nowadays would have opted out to prepare for the draft.

He’s amazing.

Q. To both coaches and whoever wants to jump in first, the climate of college football with the portal, with opting out, it’s been termed sometimes by people like me as a Wild, Wild West situation. Do you think that — to solidify things, do you think that college football needs a commissioner of sorts, some overseeing power that maybe can bring a little stability to this? One of the names I’ve seen floated for this is Nick Saban. What’s your feelings on that?

LANE KIFFIN: Yeah, there needs to be something, as you mentioned. Wild, Wild West, it’s just kind of all over the place, and the schedule, and for coaches to deal with players going in the portal.

I mentioned it before, like Manny’s situation, here goes your quarterback in the portal. We’re still playing. You would never create a system in professional sports that has things figured out that would have free agency right at the end of the regular season before the postseason.

With all the tampering that’s been talked about and stuff and all that, it puts in the kids’ heads during the season that they’re going other places.

There’s a lot of problems, a lot of issues. You mentioned Coach Saban. I can’t imagine there being a better person that genuinely has the best interest for the game and the kids. He always has. He’s always been old school that way. There couldn’t be a better person than him to do it.

Q. You brought up how active Coach is on Twitter. Do you actually tweet your tweets or does somebody else do it? What’s the inspiration behind it? Is it what’s keeping you young?

LANE KIFFIN: Yeah, I think just on Twitter, I’ve always just kind of thought of myself as a normal person. Maybe I shouldn’t have, and I just kind of tweet like normal people do, not like a head coach. I know that’s not ideal sometimes.

Usually our fan base loves it. Our university loves it and everyone else hates it. Kind of is what it is. But I think it’s actually fun to watch the interaction of fans and going back and forth.

Yeah, I do those most of the time. A lot of times people just send — friends of mine or people send me something and they know I’m going to re-tweet it. It is what it is. It’s kind of fun, and I think it’s taken too serious a lot of times.

THE MODERATOR: What’s it like for you guys when the season ends? You have to re-recruit your players; you’re recruiting high school players; you’re paying attention to the portal. You talked about the NFL model, and it seems like that’s where we’re headed. Do you think that, as well? Do you think that’s the way to go, Lane?

LANE KIFFIN: Yeah, I do. There’s so many problems within that, as you talk about. You’re basically a lot of times renegotiating with your own players as the season is going on at the end because you’re trying to get them locked down before the portal starts, and then you’ve got other players coming in, and they’re visiting places. And you’re still playing.

We’ve even had kids go in that we’ve still let play in the game because they’re still part of the game. First off, it’s not the kids’ fault. It’s the system’s fault. Sometimes you can get upset with the kids. It’s not their fault at all.

We’ve actually had kids that play in the game that miss practice to go visit other schools and come back to practice, come back to the game. If you think of it that way, what a broke system it is, or broke schedule. We’re just all trying to manage through it, but it’s really — it definitely needs to be fixed.

Q. Do y’all go over the playbook every practice, or do you all just go over it one day a week?

LANE KIFFIN: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think a lot of people think the playbook still exists like that. Like Coach Diaz says, a lot of stuff is now just on their iPads. A lot of different walk-through. Kids learn now differently, I think, than they used to. They struggle to pay attention very long. We end up going outside a lot and just going on the grass.

THE MODERATOR: True story, Coach Kiffin, you may not know this, and I assume you do this all the time, but when you were at Alabama and you were the OC, were at the SEC Championship game. You played Florida one year, I think. And Coach Kiffin oftentimes, when he sees a play unfold in front of him and he knows it works, he’ll celebrate, like he’s got hand in the air or whatever, throw the — but you always left your binder — not a binder, but it’s like laminated, like four or five pages of plays or whatever, and I was out there doing live shots after the game and I looked at it and I said, oh, this is Coach Kiffin’s. I took it. It’s a nice souvenir in my house, so I appreciate that. Thank you.

LANE KIFFIN: By the way, I put my hands up a lot back then, and then they just would catch when it would work. A lot of times we’d throw an interception and they just wouldn’t show it. So I’d do that like 20 times a game just hoping that maybe it’ll work.