TRANSCRIPT: Everything head coaches Lane Kiffin, Sam Pittman and players said after Ole Miss defeated Arkansas, 27-20

OXFORD, Miss. — After the Rebels’ 27-20 win over Arkansas Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway, Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, Jaxson Dart, Ashanti Cistrunk, and Quinshon Judkins met with media.

Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman, quarterback KJ Jefferson, defensive back Jayden Johnson, linebacker Jaheim Thomas and tight end Ty Washington.

Here’s what the head coaches and players had to say: 

Head coach Lane Kiffin

Opening Statement:
“Good win guys, this is the SEC. That’s a team we’ve struggled with. A very well coached, with a veteran quarterback and he’s given us problems, look at last year. So, very pleased that we came away with the win. We struggled offensively a lot of the game especially in the passing game. That’s what you want, you want to have games like this where you win on defense and that was one we definitely won on defense. Not just by stopping but getting the turnovers and stopping the run. The whole thing all week was we’re going to play some bigger people than you’re used to seeing and stop the run and make them throw to beat us. Our guys did a great job. KJ had 11 yards rushing and Rocket had 15 [yards]. You’re going to win a lot of games if you win the turnover margin two nothing and go 160 yards rushing to 36 total. Really pleased with our team, very pleased the way we got down in the fourth quarter again and went 10-0 to end the game. Also end the game with a defensive turnover and making a first down so we don’t have to give the ball back. It’s hard to follow after last week’s act but I thought the crowd was good. I thought we had a moment there early where I felt like we were going to open it up. I think it was 17-7 and I felt like we had some really good momentum and then we lost it. That’s the SEC guys, it happens.”

On the difficulty of keeping up the intensity up after last week:
“I thought our guys did a good job. I’m not going to sit here and take credit like I did this great job. I thought they did a good job practicing and preparing. That team gives us problems, they always have. I think they’re better on defense than maybe people give them credit for. I think they are long, strong, and play physical. They are also sticky in coverage, they get up and cover/hold you and they make it tough. They always get up for this game.”

On the importance on finishing in the fourth quarter:
“That was great. I thought that in the fourth quarter, at least the last 12 minutes, after they scored we played good team football. We had a good punt to pin them and ran the ball well. I thought [Ulysses] Bentley again showed up. He ran for 7.2 yards per carry and I think he was seven point something coming in. That’s pretty consistent and I’m the first to tell you when players make plays. That touchdown drive that he’s on, we don’t block the free safety, he makes him miss. On the last one he makes a guy miss in the hole. He’s done a great job and it’s a cool story of a guy that’s battled even when he doesn’t get carries. Last year, he got hurt. It’s good to see guys that do things right continually every day and then they play well. Sounds kind of bizarre but it usually happens like that.”

On the difference in the defense from last week:
“Eventually, when he threw us the ball we caught it this week, that helped. We tried to drop it. I thought the defensive line and the pressure did a good job. They gave KJ a lot of issues and they attacked him well for the most part. We played in a bigger package than we’ve ever had, if you saw that with some of our bigger guys like Josh Harris. That was a great job by the defensive staff.”

On the message to the team ahead of the bye week: 
“If you would have asked me before the game, I would have said I don’t like it, especially assuming we win, that we were kind of on a roll and we’re actually healthy coming in. I would ot have wanted the bye week but then in the game when our quarterback gets hurt and the top receiver gets hurt it ends up being a blessing that the bye week is coming up here soon. We have a lot to work on. It’s hard for an offensive coach to say, I like how we won today. The team needs that long term to be able to win on defense. There is going to be a weather game, there’s going to be time the offense is off and the defense has to win. Not winning like driving the length of the field and they just don’t make the two-point play. I mean winning like stopping them and getting turnovers.”

Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart

On what it means that Ole Miss can win these type of games:
“Definitely wasn’t pretty, but I think it says a lot about a team if you’re able to come out with a win like this. I just think it feels like this always happens with Arkansas, it’s just a weird game. Shout out to the defense, they definitely put this one on their back this week and pulled us through.”

On the big drive that started at 13:11 in the fourth quarter:
“We knew we weren’t playing to our standard. Sometimes that’s just the game and sometimes it works out that way. You have to find a way to just pull it out and I think it was just an alert, a wake up call, for them taking the lead. You just look at the guys, they all knew that we had to have a sense of urgency, that we had to score that drive. There was no way we were coming off the field without scoring on that drive.”

On what Ole Miss can learn heading into the bye week:
“Bye week is huge, just being able to get guys healthy. Some guys are banged up, so that will be really nice. These are games that you learn a lot from. I think this kind of takes back to our week of practice. Talked to some of the guys after the game and we were like we didn’t really practice to our standard this week. We just have to do a better job of holding each other accountable in each rep each day, and really compete to be great in each moment whether it’s in practice, a game or a walkthrough. Just something that you can learn off of.”

On what it says about Ole Miss being able to win games late:
“Well a saying that Coach Kiffin has been saying lately is ‘stay calm through the storm.’ Anytime we face any sort of adversity, don’t freak out, don’t be too high, don’t be too low, stay calm, and just trust the process that we put in the whole offseason to our preparation leading up to the game. You know just trust the process and ultimately you just stay level headed like that, you are able to make better decisions, and you are able to execute plays at a higher level.”

On what he personally wants to work on during the bye week:
“I’m really interested to turn on the tape and see what I need to clean up and that stuff. Probably my consistent leadership of being consistent throughout the game. Making sure that we keep the guys on the same page, whether it’s the first drive or our fourth or fifth drive of the game, just keep the same mindset. The biggest thing is probably through practice just being a good leader and holding each other accountable to make sure we execute the right way and play to our standard each and every rep.”

Linebacker Ashanti Cistrunk

On his interception:
“I really was just reading off of KJ [Jefferson] and then I tried to bait him a little bit. Then I broke on it and caught the pick. I was just laughing the whole time. I’ve been hearing from my teammates how I was running slow, so I guess I have to do speed training all the rest of this week.”

On Ole Miss’ defense:
“We could’ve done some things better with tackling, but we played pretty good.”

On improving tackling:
“It’s really hard since, you know, we can’t practice it throughout the week when we’re playing each other, we don’t want to hurt each other. We just have to work on the drills and stuff.”

On the importance for the defense to have a bounce back performance:
“Coach Kiffin put a lot on us to come back, so we just worked at it. We focused on everything we were doing, the little small details, and the scout team has been helping us with the looks. We just got after it.”

On how this game impacts the defense’s confidence:
“It gave us a great confidence boost. We know that the coach has trust in us and the defense can finish the game. It just feels great.”

Ole Miss running back Quinshon Judkins

On his two big plays in the drive to take the lead:
“We were on the sideline for a pretty long time. At that moment, I knew we had to get it going on the offensive side of the ball and that’s what I did on that drive.”

On what started clicking for the rush game:
“That was something that Coach Kiffin said during halftime, ‘Hey we’re still in the game, we have to keep going, get the momentum back, and execute.’ Even though it wasn’t exactly what we were planning for, we still went out there and played.”

On what’s on his mind when he’s in the wildcat formation:
“Definitely the down and distance, where to get the chains. Definitely to get the first down, because that’s typically some we run in short distance plays or near the goal line. So that’s definitely something that comes to my mind is the down, distance, and to execute.”

On playing at Auburn, which is close to his hometown:
“I feel that this bye week is very important for us with injuries and executing in practice by seeing the things that we can fix from this past game and the game we just played. So, I feel like the bye week is just very important for us. I’m really excited to go back home and play in Alabama. Looking forward to it.”

On finding a way to push through and win the past two games:
“I think that it shows the type of team that we are. This is the hardest conference to win football games. For us to go out there and do whatever it takes to win, it might not be pretty, but to end up winning those, I think it speaks a lot about our team.”

Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman

Opening statement:
“I want to congratulate Ole Miss, they found a way to win. It was a very hard hitting game, we’ve got several injuries that went out throughout the game that we’ll have to figure out exactly how long those guys are gonna be out. But I thought they had a really good game plan on defense, I thought they executed it well. They played extremely hard and played through a lot of injuries out there. Offensively we’ve got to find a way to run the football. Until we do that we’re putting way too much pressure on our quarterback, our offensive line to protect during those times and our wide outs to get open. It’s hard to win a game when you can’t run the football. We’ve gotta figure out a way to do it. Obviously we’re trying…but what we’re doing is not working, so we’ve gotta figure that part of it out. You can’t…we can’t, the way we’re built, we can’t win games not having success rushing the football.”

On how does it feel for KJ to come back to his home state and not get the win?
“I think he’s just like everybody else on the team, he’s gotta get better as well. I know he played extremely hard and he certainly just like everybody else on the team. I know it was special for him coming back, wanted to win, but he played his heart out. I think if you ask him, he’d probably take a couple…about three or four throws back, but that’s part of the game. I felt like he led extremely well tonight and played very hard.”

On what went into the line play:
“Well the first drive we go down and score but we really didn’t block a whole lot of guys. We had a lot of guys coming through untouched. The movement was bothering us, especially at center. So in the second quarter we decided to put Beaux [Limmer] back at center, maybe help that. At halftime I decided to just go back to where we were the first five games to see if we’d be better. I’ll have to watch the tape to see if we got any better or not with that combination of guys. That’s what went into the decision. We could not handle the run throughs and the movement. They were too quick for us, so I thought if we moved Beaux back in the middle, maybe that would calm some things down.”

On the overall game plan from Travis Williams and how the defense executed:
“Well I thought it was fantastic. His call fourth and two that got us the ball with the opportunity to score a touchdown in their forty was big. Our kids really bought in to what they were selling. Ole Miss had as good as a football game offensively as you can have a week ago. You know, if we do a little bit more on offense, we certainly would have been able to continue to do that. We changed up a little bit defensively while trying to get that ball back, but I think they had a great game plan and executed it well.”

On Ty Washington and his play:
“Oh man, you wanna know something? I’m so happy for him. I took him aside just right before I can here and told him how proud I was of him. You know, seven catches for two touchdowns. He never griped, he never complained. He’s playing behind Luke and he came in and had that type of game. I believe he blocked well too. That’s certainly gonna do well for his confidence and our confidence in him. For his, really his first start, to do that was really outstanding and I’m really happy for him.”

Arkansas QB KJ Jefferson

On his last game in Mississippi:
“Came up short. We had a chance to drive the ball down the score and we didn’t do that. That’s on my part and I take full responsibility for it. Gotta get better.”

On interceptions:
“It was more my eyes in the wrong spot. They kind of disguised the coverage pretty well, to where I didn’t see the guy at all. Shoutout to them, we have to— I have to—protect the ball better, take better care of the ball .”

On how frustrating it is for the game not to click how it has in the past:
“Very frustrating. It’s the SEC, so running the ball is a big deal in the SEC, establishing the run early is a big deal because once you run the ball you can open up your whole playbook.It’s pretty frustrating not being able to get the running game established and that’s something we gotta get back to the drawing board on and put more emphasis on at practice. It’s pretty frustrating.”

Arkansas DB Jayden Johnson

On sticking together after fourth straight loss:
“We all bought into the same thing. We ain’t gonna give up. We gonna continue to go to practice, get better, and continue to have that fight in us”

On players stepping up after some got injured:
“It’s a next man up mentality. We all know it can go either way. When they come in, we just talk to them. You’ve been playing football, just next man up. Take advantage of what you have in front of you.”

On cutting down on penalties:
“Keeping our composure. I feel like when we get down to it, there’s a panic that happens, and that’s what’s causing the flags. We just got to keep our composure.”

Arkansas TE Ty Washington

On taking advantage of opportunities:
“I watched the videos like Tom Brady says. You got two videos and kept making those two plays perfect. I got like five. I kept making those five perfect, kept going, kept training, doing what I had to do to be mentally ready. If you’re not ready when the opportunity comes, you’re not going to be ready.”

On mindset going into the game:
“Deep down I knew what I could do. I wasn’t really nervous. I won’t say nervous, but really just excited to play. Ready to get out there and do it. I feel like I put the work in to do it, so I was just ready to go.”

Arkansas LB Jaheim Thomas

On being able to hold Ole Miss down: 
“Just buying into the game plan that our coaches set for us every week. Knowing be able to make that play when the opportunity comes.”

On sticking together after fourth straight loss:
“Continue to keep going to work, looking at every week as an opportunity to win, a new opportunity to show what we can display, show our talents.”

On cutting down on penalties:
“Being more disciplined in practice. When opportunities come for a penalty, coaching our guys up, coaching ourselves up, basically being a lot more disciplined.”

(Feature image credit: Brad Logan, Logan Media Network)