What They Said: Here’s what Lane Kiffin, Hugh Freeze and players had to say after the Rebels’ 28-21 win over Auburn

AUBURN — After Ole Miss defeated Auburn, 28-21, Saturday on the Plains, Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, running back Quinshon Judkins, linebacker Jeremiah Jean-Baptiste and quarterback Jaxson Dart talked with media about the win.

Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze was joined postgame by tight end Rivaldo Fairweather, linebacker Larry Nixon III, offensive lineman Gunner Britton, and others.

Here’s what they all had to say:

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin

Opening Statement:
“I am just really pleased with our players and happy for our fans. I don’t care what records are going into it. This place at night is a hard place to play. Look at percentages. A lot of people lose in here. For our guys to take over in the second half and really the last play of the third quarter and the fourth quarter was awesome. We talked all week about how this season we’ve been a really good fourth-quarter team, a second-half team, but we had to do it again. That was good to see. I thought our defense, really the last drive obviously was bad and that one run, but besides that I think they got five first downs in the game. That’s really impressive defense. To play on the road, we said all week you have to pack your run game and pack your defense to come in here and win, and we did that. The players did that today. It is really good to see we overcame diversity and strange things that happen here like our backup punter not getting the snap and then throwing an interception. Our guys overcame some stuff today.”

On his message to offense when the game was tied:
“Just to stay the course and things will pop. We were being a little conservative just by the way that our defense was playing. That is going to put you in some third downs, and we did not convert on third downs. We were really poor on third down today. If you’re taking three or four yards, you have to make the third downs. Those guys did a great job on third down. They played a lot of man, brought a lot of pressure, and we didn’t make them pay for it. Credit to those guys too. I said all week they have really good defensive players and especially have really good defensive backs.”

Ole Miss RB Quinshon Judkins

On controlling his emotions and treating it like another game:
“I think just me being even-kill is the type of player I am, just staying not too high or now too low with the environment that it was today. It was pretty hard to do so. ”

On Ole Miss getting the win here:
“It speaks volume honestly. It speaks that we have discipline to play throughout all four quarters. It speaks of what type of team we are compared to the other Ole Miss teams in the past that have been there. It is special for sure.”

Ole Miss LB Jeremiah Jean-Baptiste

On the environment in the locker room with their wins:
“Week in and week out, us as a team, we are getting closer as brothers. We embrace each opportunity, and we don’t take it for granted. I would say as a team, we are united.”

On the message between the defense after Auburn scored the touchdown to tie it at 14:
“As we say, we are the best fourth-quarter defense in the nation. Defensively, I told the guys not to panic, and we were not really panicking at all to be honest.”

Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart

On winning a game in Jordan-Hare:
“I mean obviously we like to make it interesting, so that gets kind of annoying sometimes. I thought we moved the ball around really well. We got a little stuck in the second and third quarters. We just knew that once we got a little momentum spark that things were going to start clicking. Once we had that big connection to Tre (Harris), everything was great from then on. We had a lot of confidence in ourselves going into the fourth quarter. We have done it all year. I just feel like this year we feel really comfortable in that kind of situation. There is not a lot of stress. There are not a lot of guys that have emotional swings, but I am just really proud of this group and the confidence we have to be able to finish up games like that.”

On the challenge mentally at the tie with Auburn:
“Each team made adjustments. I felt like they did a really good job disguising their coverages. At pre-snap, it got really hard to pick out what they were in. Credit to coach (Charlie) Weis for being able to keep his composure and just have some conversations with coach (Sterlin) Gilbert. We talked about the two plays where we hit Tre (Harris) back-to-back before we went out on the field. I just give a lot of credit to them for being able to make adjustments throughout the game and get things rolling.”

Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze

Opening statement:
“Yeah, I’m disappointed. I think our kids played hard. I feel like that we’ve got to coach them better and it starts with me. Regardless of whether you may be the most talented team on a certain night, you certainly can be well coached in critical areas and critical downs. The margin for us between winning and losing right now is so small that we can’t mess those up. Obviously, I’ve got to do a better job too, to make sure we don’t make those mistakes in those areas. I don’t know if it makes a difference in the game, it sure feels like it. And we got to convert those critical downs. We continue to lose the battles on third and fourth down, and that’s disappointing. Whether it’s one guy or a play call, it’s really disappointing. I felt like we had really good work this week and was excited about this chance for the great crowd we had. It was an incredible night, and I really felt like we would be in this game for the entirety of it. We had our chances. The defense got some stops against a very explosive offensive. Offensively, we kept shooting ourselves in the foot it felt like. And they made some plays too, but some of it was of our own doing.”

On his mindset behind still using the two-quarterback system:
“I don’t think it had anything to do with the outcome of the game. I think both had a really good package and both worked at times. It would be nice to have one for sure but we’re searching to see what the best avenue is for us to go and win. I still think that Robby (Ashford) should have a package. I felt good about both of these packages tonight. I think they both worked at times, but it was when you get into the third down area that we didn’t convert.”

Auburn TE Rivaldo Fairweather

On the tough stretch of the schedule and the importance of winning:
“It’s very, very important and we’ve got to win out the rest of these games. We’re going to go back to practice and come up with a great plan to go out beat the next team we have. We just have to have a next-game mentality. This game, the offense kind of struggled, but the defense played amazing. I promised my defense we’ll find a way to execute out there as an offense.”

On having six three-and-outs:
“We just have to execute and have to come up with a better pass game. We need to go out there and make plays for our quarterbacks. Just have to execute.”

Auburn MLB Larry Nixon III

On what was working:
“We were slowing them (Ole Miss) down, stopping their runs and not letting them complete their passes. Slowing them down is what really led us to being successful during this game. We just finished as a team, as we should have.”

On having Keionte Scott and Austin Keys back:
“Keionte is an explosive player, as well as Austin. Having them back is good for me because he and I split reps. I get a little breather out there, too. I can run around out there more and be 100 percent myself and he can be 100 percent himself. I’m really proud of the guys coming back and playing as good as they did today.”

Auburn OL Gunner Britton

On what the mentality is to finish the rest of the season strong:
“Look towards the next game, it’s really tough. We have played four ranked teams back-to-back-to-back. That’s a tough stretch for any team, but Freeze said in the pregame speech that is what you do when you play in the SEC. Even for me when I came here, I knew the teams I was going to be playing, so you just have to look towards next week and there is nothing you can really do to change the game. You just have to go and watch the film, learn the film and move on from there.”

On what is one thing that might be missing offensively that is not clicking right now:
“Honestly, I really could not tell you right now. My job right now is to play left guard for this team and that is what I can do for this team. We can look at the film and it’s easy to hold the remote and say we can do this or this, but it is a little bit different when you are on the field. For me, we just have to go back to the drawing board and just try to figure out something that will work.”

Auburn DT Marcus Harris

On running out of gas at the end of the third quarter:
“I feel like we have to look at our mistakes and fix those. We also need to communicate to be more efficient for the fourth quarter and then we’ll be good.”

On having Keionte Scott and Austin Keys back out there tonight:
“Those guys bring so much energy and hope to the defense. We love when both of those guys are in the game. I was especially happy to see (Austin) Keys play in this game.”

Auburn CB Keionte Scott

On being back on the field tonight:
“It was just a blessing. We put in a lot of hard work and the staff did a great job of creating a plan and trusting it. Being able to be with the boys and practice with the team again after just watching, was a blessing.”

On being able to be a part of many snaps and involved during the game:
“I had (the) LSU (game) circled and wasn’t able to get that accomplished, so this game was for sure. I hold myself accountable to contribute to this defense. While being back out there, I really didn’t want to come off the field. But getting back into it, I had to come off for a couple of plays. I feel like I did a good job.”

Auburn RB Jarquez Hunter

On getting things off the ground at the start:
“There are just small things we need to work on as a group. If we just get those things together, I think those three-and-outs would have been made into first downs so we would’ve had positive yards.”

On the team’s confidence to finish out this season strong:
“I think we have a lot of confidence. I also think we went out there and played good today. Like I said, it’s just the small things that we need to work on. For defense and offense, we have to go out there and execute. If we do those things, I think the rest of the season is going to be good.”

(Feature image credit: Josh McCoy, Ole Miss)