Rebels look ahead to A&M
OXFORD, Miss. – Lane Kiffin found himself in a position Monday he had not been in 51 weeks.
He had to address his team on a Monday after a regular-season loss.
The last time he had to do it was the first week of November last year after dropping a 31-20 decision to Auburn. The Rebels bounced back and beat Liberty the next week.
Saturday, Ole Miss was dominated in the second half, losing to LSU 45-20. Yet, the 25-point loss may not have been as bad as it seemed.
“I told them today, you look at the final score and think, ‘Ok, well, they weren’t ready to play; they came in and got dominated.’ That wasn’t the case,” Kiffin said Monday at his weekly press conference.
“They started really well, didn’t let the crowd affect them and got up 17-3. Even after a lot of stuff, four minutes left in the third quarter, going into score to take the lead and played really poorly for the next 19 minutes after the interception, on all three phases, but especially offense and defense.”
Coach Kiffin on the Rebels’ loss to LSU
The key, according to Kiffin, is to look ahead rather than behind. Even though the No. 7 ranking and undefeated season are gone, the Rebels must look ahead to a dangerous Texas A&M game this week. That preparation began Monday.
“It was just a walkthrough, but I think they were good,” Kiffin said of today’s practice.
“Just pointing out, here’s the things we did really well in the game, and here’s where we fell apart. Just like when we play a really good 19 minutes, we can’t let that define us and say, ‘Oh, we’re great now.’ Just like when you play a really bad 19 minutes, we can’t let that make us lose our confidence and (think) we’re no good all of a sudden.”
Coach Kiffin on the mentality after the loss
Suddenly Ole Miss is beaten up physically. Troy Brown and A.J. Finley each went down in Baton Rouge and Zach Evans was unable to play due to a knee injury. That put extra pressure on freshman Quinshon Judkins who ran for 111 yards and two touchdowns on 25 carries. He ran 25 times two weeks against Auburn and 27 times in a win over Tulsa.
“(We) overplayed Quinshon Judkins because Zach Evans wasn’t available and Ulysses Bentley IV really was questionable and limited. I think he (Quinson) played 71 plays or something like that. That’s not ideal. Hopefully we’ll get healthy to help that. Just got to do a better job in a lot of areas.“
Coach Kiffin on Quinshon Judkins
One of those areas is defensively.
After getting off to a 17-3 lead, Ole Miss was outscored 42-3 the rest of the game. LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels threw for 248 yards and ran for another 121, many of those rushing yards coming after contact.
“We’ve got to tackle better and limit explosive plays, which is what we had done really well early in the year,” Kiffin said. “We showed them some film today just to make sure. Here’s something from two weeks ago and three weeks ago the Kentucky game, how well we played and the energy we played with and gang tackling. It’s not like we have to come up with it out of nowhere. We’ve done it.”
Ole Miss has to do it again to be successful this week.
Up Next:
Texas A&M and the Rebels kick off at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Kyle Field. The game can be seen on the SEC Network.
(Feature image credit: Josh McCoy, Ole Miss)
Steve Barnes
Steve Barnes joins The Rebel Walk staff as a senior writer and brings a trifecta of journalistic experience. As a writer, he has covered college sports for Rivals.com, Football.com and SaturdayDownSouth.com as well as served as a beat writer for various traditional newspapers.
He has been a broadcaster for arena football and several national tournament events for the National Junior College Athletic Association as well as hosting various shows on radio.
A former sports information director at Albany (Ga.) State University and an assistant at Troy and West Florida, he has helped host many NCAA conference, regional and national events, including serving five years on the media committee of the NCAA Division II World Series.
Barnes, a native of Pensacola, Fla., attended Ole Miss in 1983-84, where his first journalism teacher was David Kellum. The duo has come a long way since that time.
He will bring a proven journalistic track record, along with a knack for finding the out-of-the-ordinary story angles to The Rebel Walk.
Barnes continues to reside in Pensacola a mere ten minutes from the beach because he does have taste and a brain.
