Everything Lane Kiffin had to say after Ole Miss’ first practice of preseason camp

Ole Miss football head coach Lane Kiffin on Wednesday met the media following the first practice of preseason camp to preview the upcoming 2023 season. Ole Miss returns to practice Thursday at 6 p.m. CT.

OPENING STATEMENT

“It’s great to be back. Really good practice this morning. As we’ve talked about before, this is almost a roster that’s half new from last season. A lot of work to do with that, but also a lot of excitement from some guys that have been or could be really good players. We’ve got a lot of work to do to put that together with all the pieces.

“That system can work sometimes, even in professional sports with a lot of big-name free agents. Sometimes if they mesh together it works really well, but sometimes it doesn’t. It’s not as easy having these pieces that look like they’re supposed to be really good or have performed really well or were big recruits out of high school. It’s a lot to put them together, to mesh together, to be a really good team.

“I’m excited to be out there with a lot of pieces to work with. I’m trying to bring them together and to gel together. Defensively, there are a lot of new pieces, even more than offense. That probably will take a little more time because of the new coaches and new system on defense, to get all of that practiced, put together and to the level that we want to play at. We’re excited about our new coaches and players over there.

“We have a lot of work to do.”

ON THE OLE MISS QB BATTLE

“All four guys out there (Jaxson Dart, Spencer Sanders, Walker Howard and Austin Simmons) are getting reps and rotating through with all the different units. That’s definitely as deep as we have been here, to have that much competition at a lot of different ages. All the way from a guy who’s 23 to a guy who was supposed to be a sophomore in high school.

“It’s neat to have all those guys together, to be able to work with, and to have that much talent. Nowadays that’s very rare to have in the quarterback room with all the guys that leave. It came up last night, Charlie (Weis Jr.) was asking how do we rep them.

“We have a lot of guys which is obviously a great problem to have. It’s going to be exciting to watch them compete in the Vaught.”

ON THE STATUS OF UTSA TRANSFER WR ZAKHARI FRANKLIN

“Day one, you’re not going to get a lot from me on injuries or a lot of information on that. It’s just how it is.

“He’s not out there yet. We would anticipate him to be out there and playing for us, but he’s not today.”

ON THE QB BATTLE POSSIBLY GOING INTO THE SEASON

“I would prefer for it not to. I’ve always said that. I always think it’s better to have your guy, but you don’t want to risk choosing the wrong one. There are times, at least two that I can remember, that we’ve gone into a season not knowing for sure. We’ve used some games, our first game, to help gather the information to make the decision.

“Obviously, you don’t have preseason games. So, it is hard to judge, and people make the wrong decisions all the time, even with preseason games at the next level. I just try to be really careful to say, ‘Well, that’s the guy,’ and then you haven’t even seen him play in the game with you and the current team.

“Ideally, no, we would not get to that. But if it doesn’t show itself, then I feel like you have to.”

ON TEAM LEADERS

“That is challenging nowadays with the system the NCAA has set up. Also, taking that on our own, we take a lot of guys. That is a big challenge, and I think we did an exercise the other day just going through. Outside of offensive linemen, we only had three players that have been here that initially signed here; that are still here (as) juniors or seniors, which is mind-blowing. That all but offensive linemen are upperclassmen, but three are from other places.

“We have a few guys that have been here a while, especially in the offensive line with Cedric (Melton). That’s an ongoing challenge for us to bring people along, and that was a big message in the team meeting last night.

“You have to do work to come together. This isn’t an individual sport. You have to do a lot of work off the field with each other to build trust and prepare.”

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ON FRESHMEN AYDEN WILLIAMS (WR) AND KEDRICK REESCANO (RB)

“Ayden looked really good, and obviously he was a great high school player. You never know until you really get them, and it’s only been one day without pads, but he looked really special and unique out there. The little bit we’ve been able to do with him in the offseason, we’ve seen the same type of stuff.

“(Reescano) had some elite traits. He was a great high school player, and he did some good things out there also.”

ON WHAT CONSTITUTES SUCCESS FOR OLE MISS IN 2023

“I don’t spend a lot of time on that, because that’s so far down the road. People want to say, ‘Win this many games,’ or ‘finish this place in the conference.’ There are too many variables.

“You want to coach really well and play really well. Sometimes that means this many wins and sometimes the ball hits the upright and it doesn’t go in or the ref misses a call.

“I know at the end of the day it’s about wins and losses. But from a coaching standpoint, it’s about coaching really well, getting our guys to play really well, and be hard to beat.

“I think last year, at the end, we weren’t hard to beat. We turned the ball over, we didn’t get turnovers and we were horrible in the red zone. We gave people too many easy plays. To me, when you’re a really good team, you’re coached really well, you’re playing really well (and) you’re hard to beat.

“You might lose some games, but you have to play really well to beat us. I do not feel like that was the case at the end of the season.”

ON NEW OLE MISS DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR PETE GOLDING

“Pete is really smart. Great recruiter, high energy. I really like being around him. He’s still young, but what he brings to the guys (is) about coaching really great players, and he coaches the coaches really well. Sometimes young guys struggle to do that; they’re just scheme guys.

“I’ve been really impressed by him, as with everyone who’s worked with him.”

ON THE THREE RETURNING DEFENSIVE STARTERS

“It’s one day with helmets. So, we haven’t gotten through the film yet, (but) you’re able to see both films of everybody. I really can’t completely answer that. There are a lot of good-looking pieces out there — more then there were in the spring.

“Now, we have a lot of work to do with them. That’s really good, because when the pieces don’t look really good, a lot of times it doesn’t matter how many practices you have or how well you coach. You can’t tackle on them when you can’t cover them.

“I do have some good-looking pieces. Now I have to put them together.”

WATCH: Ole Miss brought football back and opened preseason camp. We’ve got the highlights.

ON CHALLENGES OF THE TRANSFER PORTAL

“It’s extremely challenging. I’m not complaining about my job, but I think we’re extremely overpaid for what we do. We have awesome jobs. It’s fun to come here every day. People say pressure, but we’re extremely overpaid. They’ll tell you that’s the market.

“It’s really hard to build a program because every year is so new. I’ve been vocal about it, so don’t get me wrong: just because I say it’s not a very good system that’s in place with the portal and NIL combined and not good regulations around it, we still maximize it. We still utilize it as much as anybody, because those are the rules they have in place.

“There’s no sport like it that you can look to and say, ‘OK, this is how you do it, and this is how you manage the team.’ If you take a freshman and they’re a really good player, you put a really good scheme, you’ve coached him really well, and you get him the ball a lot, you create your own problem, because all of a sudden at the end of the season everybody wants him and to pay him all this money because of his production.

“So, that doesn’t happen.

“Usually when your rookies play really well, you got them for their rookie contract. It’s very challenging. The parts that I don’t like are you get away from Xs and Os sometimes. We’re still here the last few days (and) our roster’s not even done yet. We’re still on a couple guys potentially that maybe will be practicing tomorrow that aren’t here today. That’s not normal.

“It’s just really unique.”

ON CRITICISM OF SOME OF HIS STATEMENTS AT SEC MEDIA DAYS

“I’m OK. It is what it is. When you sit up here for a while, they’re going to take little parts of it and cut down to paragraphs or sentences, (and) then it plays different from what you’re saying.

“What I mentioned earlier, it’s a really bad system. I didn’t say all of college football is broken; I’m talking specifically about two things: the portal and NIL. Them coming together at the same time a couple years ago and that not being thought about with the issues around that. 

“At the same time, we’re still trying our best to utilize whatever rules there are. I think (the Grove Collective) does a great job. I wasn’t complaining about anything here; I was talking about the system that’s out there.

“(GC executive director) Walker Jones, our collective and our donors have done a great job. There just needs to be a lot of work done on the system that’s around it. There’s no sport at any level where your players twice a year can opt in their free agency. There’s no way to sign them longer in that.

“I never complain about the money that they get. But you should be able to have longer contracts.”

ON LANDING MORE HIGH-LEVEL HIGH SCHOOL PLAYERS

“Ideally, yes, I think (high-school recruiting) is the blueprint to win over a long period of time. It’s not to re-do your roster every year or two, in my opinion. You’re going to have ups and downs doing that. No different than if you rebuild all your time in free agency and don’t draft well. That is not the ideal way to do it.

“I’m just maximizing the situation we’re in. Each year changes. Depending on where you’re at, what your situation is, how many guys went in. I don’t know if you see better players are signing here out of high school. I think it’s a couple years of having on-field success. Especially a really good run for a year-and-a-half until the end of last year. I told our guys, every year is different and we didn’t play well down the stretch. At the same time, guys, we’re 8-1 with the ball in the red zone to beat Alabama to go to 9-1 (overall record).

“There were some good things being done there, and I think recruits have seen that. I do feel like we are getting better high-school-player attention now.”

ON HIS CONCERN WITH THE DEFENSIVE PERSONNEL TURNOVER

“I’m realistic in my answers. Yeah, I’m worried.

“I haven’t seen them perform together. New coordinator, a lot of new staff and a lot of brand-new players. It is a high level concern.

“Now, I’m excited about the pieces, the coaches and the players. But that’s a long way from them playing really well together, knowing what to do, not blowing coverages and fitting every run right.

“But I’m very excited about that, it just is what it is. I always say you can’t follow the book that was written 100 years ago on how to coach; you have to evolve and adjust. Well, this book has dramatically changed. I looked out there at one point and the unit that was out there, it’s so new, especially on that side of ball. There were a lot of defensive players out there, and only one signed here out of high school.

“It is what it is.”

ON JAXSON DART SECOND-GUESSING HIMSELF

“I’ve talked to him. Those quarterback competitions, those have to happen and go later than the player wants them to. Certainly, the player wants to be the quarterback and doesn’t want that to keep dragging on. But my job is not to please one player; I’ve got to do what’s best for the team.

“That’s why it’s so long — to make sure, with the most information we have, that we make the best decision. I have no problem that players get frustrated sometimes. But I think we communicate really well with them so they understand what’s going on and why we’re doing the things we do.”

ON THE RENOVATED MANNING CENTER

“It’s awesome to be in here. Again, donors did a great job raising the money to build it. We were in that transition period a long time — all last season being over there. Even our players haven’t really had a locker room for a long time.

“It’s really exciting, and I’m sure that falls into success you’re seeing with high-school recruiting, too. The ones prior to this came and visited and didn’t see anything.

“Now it’s real.”