What does Juice Kiffin and fall camp have in common? Allow Lane Kiffin to explain.
Leave it to Lane Kiffin to find similarities in being a new dog owner and the challenges of opening up another training camp.
To the outside looking in the previous sentence might be a head scratch-er but allow for the third year Ole Miss head coach to explain himself.
Juice, who has taken not just Ole Miss but the college football world by storm, emerged as the perfect recruiting resource during last weekend’s aptly-named ‘Juice Fest ’22.’
But during his press conference on Wednesday following the opening practice of fall camp Kiffin talked about all the new faces on the team and the challenges the effect of the transfer portal brings to training camp.
“We have a lot of moving parts as we discussed all spring with new players,” Kiffin said. “As we told the team in the team meeting this is a different era nowadays in general because you don’t have programs where everyone’s been there for years in your program and not understanding what expectations are. I’m sure everyone is dealing with this but especially us with the amount of transfers, it’s so many people and guys who are supposed to be significant may not even be here in the spring.”
Related: ‘Electric’ Jaylon Robinson has saddled up to Jaxson Dart as the transfers find their Ole Miss footing
Kiffin is working with 17 new players from the transfer portal along with his crop of high school prospects as fall camp gets underway.
Enter Juice into the conversation.
Midway through Wednesday’s presser Kiffin was ask about his new furry addition to the family. Juice, who Kiffin got for his oldest daughter that moved to Oxford, is going through a training camp of his own.
According to Kiffin, Juice is in the third day of his so-called “training camp” at Wildrose Kennels, where Juice came from.
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“You probably wouldn’t think that Juice would make me look at coaching better,” Kiffin said. “I don’t know how to train a dog and I don’t really do what they tell me to do. So, Juice is not really well behaved right now.”
With Juice at a day training camp it has caused Kiffin to look at his own team.
The trainers at Wildrose provide a list of what Juice is doing well and what he is not, including his own ‘practice film’ of sorts.
With a lot of new players trying to find their way at Ole Miss and gel into Kiffin and his staff’s system, there is where something struck Kiffin. A realization was made that Juice and his crop of transfer players share something in common.
“Meeting with (Wildrose) about it I was like, ‘There’s so much similarities here to buying in and bringing people into culture. Because we’re bringing him in and all the sudden he’s around all these other dogs and how well they’re trained has a lot to do with the training of him and him not being distracted by all the other things.
“I was like, ‘You guys are going through the same thing we’re going through.’ When you bring people into an organization, transfer in. Like getting them to buy in. Here’s a puppy he’s taking over with all these other dogs that have been trained the whole time and Juice ain’t listening to what he’s supposed to be doing. I kind of feel like that’s some of our transfers right now.”
Related: Three Takeaways from day one of Ole Miss football’s fall camp
