'It'll come': Lane Kiffin knows the Ole Miss run game needs to show up and other Reb Talk notes

The weekly head coach show is usually one full of inevitable coach speak and maybe a few good stories and banter between fans and the leader of their favorite college football team. This week’s edition of Reb Talk was one of the more business-like ones for Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin.

On Thursday inside Bouré restaurant on the Oxford Square Kiffin held court in front of a room full of Ole Miss supporters, including his parents, and getting hardball questions relative to the usual fare.

Last week there were jokes about Alabama head coach Nick Saban, playful quips from Kiffin and a lot of discussion about the unofficial mascot of the football team, Juice Kiffin.

This week nearly every question was “scheme” related in one way or another.

“That’s what happens when you score 10 points,” Kiffin said.

Even the fourth-year head coach was aware that this week’s edition of his coach’s show was going to have a different tone.

The popular question from the live audience and the live chat on the Facebook Live feed was about the Ole Miss run game, or lack thereof. Quinshon Judkins showed some life and looked more himself against Alabama for the first time this season, but it was not enough in the 24-10 loss to the Crimson Tide.

Kiffin was optimistic about Judkins continuing to get back to his 2022 self as well as the Ole Miss ground attack returning. He also acknowledged the urgency in needing that phase of the offense to become effective again.

“That would obviously be a big key to our success, getting our ground game going,” Kiffin said. “Two weeks ago it was pretty good, 300 yards against Georgia Tech. But other than that it’s not been very good this year. That’s been a staple since we’ve been here more than anything. Passing, defense, special teams. It’s been running the football. It’ll come and needs to come this Saturday.”

Another big topic of discussion was Ole Miss linebacker Suntarine Perkins and the LSU linebacker that shares the same last name.

Perkins had his coming out party for the SEC last weekend with his play against the Alabama defense with a pair of sacks and five tackles.

Across the sideline this Saturday will be LSU linebacker Harold Perkins, Jr. who broke onto the scene last year against Ole Miss.

There is no relation but Kiffin cannot help but see a lot of football qualities the Perkins duo have in common.

“They’re kind of like DBs in linebacker bodies,” Kiffin said of both Perkins. “That’s good for us but now we’ve got to go against theirs and he’s by far their best player and probably the best defensive player in the SEC.”

Despite Kiffin not putting much stock in the theory another question asked how big this weekend’s game against LSU is when it come to keeping the confidence level up within the locker room.

As has been the case all week, Kiffin disagreed with the notion with there still being more than half the season remaining after this weekend.

“I don’t know about all that. It’s a long season,” Kiffin said. “This is a huge game and it’s the next game that we’re playing. It’s the only one that matters. It’s great to have a performance we weren’t happy with at all last week and to be able to have a big-time opponent the next week snaps you out of it and gets you focused. This will be exciting. We beat these guys the last time they were here and that’s our plan again.”

Other topics discussed during Kiffin’s ‘Reb Talk’ appearance:

• What does his father, Monte Kiffin, role within the Ole Miss staff help with in game preparation and planning?
  • “He does a great job around the office with younger coaches, players. Has always been a good mentor and takes a lot of his time out for the young guys. Really does a lot more with the younger coaches. …It’s really cool. We’ve been able to have him at three places and that’s been really special, really awesome.”

• What did Alabama do in the second half to not allow Ole Miss to score more points?
  • “I think it was more about us. I don’t think we executed very well. We had some missed signals, dropped ball, miss throw and an inability to run the ball. That is a recipe for disaster anywhere but especially at Alabama. You guys have seen it for a while. It’s a tough place to play.”

• Caden Prieskorn and Zakhari Franklin on their Ole Miss debuts and current status moving forward
  • “They were limited. That’s a big deal for our offense. When you start playing good defenses and you don’t have your weapons, we’ve seen that happen here before. We lost (Jonathan) Mingo going into Alabama two years ago and went there and it was 35-7 or something like that in the third quarter. Hopefully we’ll be back to full strength Saturday. We were playing really well on offense before we had some injuries. Excited to get back to that.”