SEC honors Fraser Masin after punter gives Ole Miss surprisingly-needed lift in Egg Bowl win
Lane Kiffin, ideally, would rarely, if ever, use his punter in a game, let alone see him win SEC weekly honors.
He’s analytically-bent and will always be among the most aggressive coaches in college football on fourth down.
But his Ole Miss football Rebels received a surprisingly much-needed boost from senior punter Fraser Masin in a sleepy Egg Bowl on Thanksgiving night. The Rebels, with a 17-7 win, clinched their second-ever 10-win regular season. It’s their second under Kiffin.
But they also spent a lot of the night going against script, forced to replace their typically-explosive offense with abnormal amounts of punting and leaning on their defense, especially in the first half.
As a result, Masin was named Co-Special Teams Player of the Week by the conference on Monday.
“On the one they finally got a return, I thought there was two — for sure, one — blocks in the back on it. So, I thought our coverage units did good,” Kiffin said afterwards. “(Masin) angled the ball really well.
“We used our starting corner, (Deantre) Prince, and a lot of times we used (wide receiver Dayton) Wade even as a gunner, because we just felt we were going to play really good defense. Didn’t want to give them a special teams return play to kind of light a fire in the stadium.
“We went all-out on that.”
Masin, a native of Australia, turned in a career-best night.
His eight punts were his most in a single game in his college career, and they resulted in a career-high 345 combined yards. Masin landed a career-high six punts inside the 20 yard line. He averaged 43.1 yards per try, including a long of 48.
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The Ole Miss (10-2, 6-2 SEC) offense finally awoke enough in the second to pull away from the lowly Bulldogs (5-7, 1-7), who, over the weekend, hired former Rebel offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby as their next head coach.
Now Kiffin and Co. await their postseason landing spot, which will most likely be in a New Year’s Six or the Citrus Bowl. Either way, the Rebels will be playing in their fourth straight bowl under Kiffin since 2020 — the longest streak since Ole Miss went to 15 straight from 1957 to 1971.
“They’re (the bowl-selection committee) not going to listen to me,” Kiffin said, when asked about his team’s worthiness of a NY6. “They’re not going to say, ‘Oh, that was a good point coach Kiffin made, we’re gonna move ‘em up (and) put ‘em in a New Year’s Six.
“But I think this one is a pretty good argument. You went 10-2. Super-hard schedule, even your non-conference. Your two losses are at Alabama and Georgia, the two teams going to the SEC Championship Game. Playing as well as anybody at their place.
“I’d like to see the other 10-2 teams and their losses. I would doubt their losses are going to be harder ones that those two places to play.”
