'He calls you out': Lane Kiffin challenged the locker room the last two weeks. Ole Miss responded
Very rarely does Lane Kiffin get into the weeds or specifics of his coaching or message to the team throughout the week, but the Ole Miss loss to Alabama sparked a change.
Following the game in Tuscaloosa and another poor performance by the offensive line it was Kiffin that challenged the room directly, asking them to respond and improve.
The message was received as quarterback Jaxson Dart was not sacked once during the LSU game and the Arkansas defense only got to him twice this past Saturday. This after Dart was sacked five times by the Crimson Tide defense.
“It’s part of a business. He calls you out,” Caleb Warren said on Monday of Kiffin’s challenge. “It’s time to check your ego. He always says, ‘Drop the E and lets go.’ So it’s just kind of one thing that we’ve bought into. Everybody just do your job.”
While the protection of Dart has improved since Kiffin’s challenge the Ole Miss run game has seen drastic improvement over the last two weeks.
Against LSU the Rebels ran for a season-high 317 yards with Quinshon Judkins having his best game of the year with 177 rushing yards and a touchdown. Then last weekend Ole Miss rushed for 196 yards led by 96 yards from Ulysses Bentley IV.
Seemingly the call out and challenge from Kiffin resonated with the offensive line.
“We kind of took it as a challenge on ourselves. Just come in each and every single day, no matter what’s going on, and just go to work,” Warren added. “Focus on one little thing at a time and just really working on competing.”
Ole Miss got its offensive line sorted out, for now, but then Kiffin turned his attention to the defense.
With the offense having large success two weeks ago against LSU, so did the Tigers against the Ole Miss defensive.
LSU finished with 637 total yards of offense against the Rebels with quarterback Jayden Daniels throwing for 414 yards to compliment 223 rushing yards.
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Suffice it to say Kiffin was not pleased with that and directed his latest challeng to the entire defensive side of the ball.
Challenge accepted and passed as Ole Miss kept Arkansas quarterback KJ Jefferson and his offense in check with 286 total yards in the 27-20 victory.
Jared Ivey was witness to Kiffin’s direct challenge and answered the bell along with the rest of defense.
“I’ll put it like this: The coaches, they often ask us what we think Ole Miss is known for when they go in the media and do all these breakdowns?,” Ivey said. “Do you think they’re talking about defense or are they talking about offense? We’ve got all his promotional stuff, ‘Score From Far’ and this and that, which is good. Our offense can go out there and do big things.
“But, we don’t want to play shootout games. He just challenged us to play up to the standard that we upheld throughout camp and the winter. …Just play like that from the start and not get into those dogfights late in games that we feel like we’re better than to be in.”
Kiffin was pleased with both sides of the ball coming off the win over Arkansas to head into the bye week. With a trip to Auburn looming next weekend the question will be does both groups maintain the response from Kiffin’s challenge after the break?
