SUNDAY TRANSCRIPT: Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin discusses Florida game

OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin met with media for his weekly Sunday zoom to go over Saturday’s game, this one, a loss to Florida in Gainesville. He talked about the Rebels’ poor execution in many facets of the game, the lack of using Ulysses Bentley IV at running back, Jaxson Dart’s reaction to the loss, and more.

Here’s everything Coach Kiffin said Sunday night:

Opening Statement

“Alright, we really picked a bad time to play our worst offensive game of the year from an execution standpoint, which really cost us in a lot of areas — three red zone possessions with no points, missed field goal and two fourth down stops and very unusual drops for us. We were moving the ball really well early, what 14 points and down there in the red zone again when Tre (Harris) gets hurt, which not only ended up being incompletion because of the hit that he took on the injury, but we missed the field goal, so we get no points out of that and then obviously don’t have Tre the rest of the game.

But really unfortunate we didn’t play as good a run defense as we have. I thought we did do well most of the game on defense. You know, ten of the 13 drives were three and outs or gave up no points, but we did miss our most tackles and yards after contact of the season and lost the turnover margin. You go on the road in this conference, I mean, there’s a recipe. Go on the road in this conference, which continues to show how hard it is to play in this conference and on the road, especially as we saw yesterday, and you lose the turnover margin, don’t consistently stop the run and, you know, we lost in special teams. We had a turnover where we muffed a punt, handing them three points, and then we missed a red zone field goal. That’s a recipe to lose in most football, but especially in this conference against a team that, when that quarterback plays, has played really good all year. The guy is a dynamic player. I said it during the week, kind of some Steve McNair-type issues of dealing with him, how strong he is, and to make plays when you think you have him down.

And, so really disappointing. Disappointed for our fans. We had worked ourselves all the way back with the winning streak and Georgia win and obviously set ourselves back. So, I said after the game to the media, feel like you’re kind of in the NFL where you’re out of the playoffs and still got a game to play. You know that seems like that may have changed last night with the rest of college football yesterday, but especially the SEC. So they still have a chance to be alive, and we play before everybody else. So, let’s go play really well and play a very meaningful game, a big rivalry game. We have Tom Luke speaking to the team tonight about this, because you have so many new players that know nothing about it, really. And how big of a big game this is, that this would be our fifth, so we’ve been on the winning side every time and screwed it up one year and we were on the other side, so we know what that feeling is like. So, short week and excited to play in front of our fans at home. So there we are.”

On if there was a football reason for Ulysses Bentley not playing RB:

“…It’s nothing off the field at all. He’s a wonderful kid who does everything we ask of him. We just haven’t been real consistent and productive at that spot this year and tried something else yesterday. So, it is what it is. I’ve got a lot of respect for him. Really appreciate how he’s handled the situation, but this is what happens in coaching. Everybody doesn’t play and you’ve got to make hard decisions.”

On the value of the running back position from an investment point of view and if he values it differently than last year:

“That’s natural to to think when you don’t run the ball well, and like you said, investments of one star running back. And you know what that does to your overall salary cap. You know, that’s the same questions the NFL has and stuff. And so I understand those questions. But at the same time, too, you can put a bunch of your pool into that, and he gets hurt. And then you’re saying, ‘well man, we don’t have whatever in case we don’t have a couple of d-linemen that we have.’ And so we put it all into running back and he gets hurt in training camp or one of the first games of the year, and then you got a running back that can run really well, but then you can’t stop, stop people on defense. So, that’s why it’s a complicated question. Complicated answer. And, the NFL has dealt with it for years and you see the route they’ve gone.

On if Dae’Quan Wright was hurt in the game:

“I think I jinxed ourselves with the injury (situation), saying how good we were coming into the game and guys coming back. And then we had a really bad first half, starting safety goes out. Tre Harris goes out. Dae’Quan went out. He did come back, but he was limited later on in the game. Our center went out, which really cost us later in the game with a critical third down snap and some rough positioning for a guy to go in from guard to center and then have to play in the two-minute at the end and stuff. So, we ended up getting really banged up in this game. And Jordan (Watkins) aggravated hamstring in the first series. He’s a tough kid and came out but pushed his way through and did not play anywhere near 100% the rest of the game which you might have been able to see. So we did kind of look a little slow motion once Tre went out. And then Jordan couldn’t run full speed and that really was costly on two different potential occasions, two different potential touchdowns.

On Yam Banks’ status and if he will return this season:

“No, I think he’ll have surgery tomorrow.”

On his evaluation of  how WR Juice Wells has played:

“I think he’d be the first to tell you, he’s had some kind of ups and downs this year and missed all of spring and training camp you know, so I think he’d be the first to tell you it’s been a really up and down year for him.”

On choosing to kick FGs in the win over Georgia while going for it against Florida:

“Well, I think as you look at it, every situation is different. And like I said, there’s also what, fourth downs on a 45 and the -45 that if you’re playing conservative like some people do, you would you would punt like they did in the game. And then we wouldn’t have scored those two touchdowns that, I think, one’s the next play and the other one’s two plays later after the conversion that we scored touchdowns.

So down there, you know, JJ (Pegues) really, basically, for the most part, hadn’t been stopped all year in short yardage. And they did a good job, but both were our fault. Both were a missed assignment on a block where a guy missed the wrong guy. And then the other one, JJ just took off and bounced it, which has worked for him too because he’s been able to run over people. And he’d be the first to tell you if he just stayed down in A gap where the play was, he would have made it easily. But, there’s always going to be little cost-benefit of everything in life. And, JJ, obviously, practices on defense all week. And so, he’s not going to be the most consistent gap runner being a d-tackle. But he’s done a great job all year and made almost everything up to this game and then made some critical ones in this game also. So he’s been a very big weapon for us, and we faked to him on another fourth down that was a very big completion to Jordan.”

On Jaxson Dart being devastated after the loss to Florida:

“I spent last night with Jaxson, actually, at my house. This guy puts a lot into Ole Miss and this team and Ole Miss football, as much as any player I’ve ever seen, maybe more. He took it really hard. He really felt like he let down the team, the whole city of Oxford.  Pretty unique to have a quarterback on the couch last night that upset that he let everybody here down. He actually, when you watch the film, played great til the end of the game. He made great throws…worked through some tough situations. There were a lot of yards dropped out there that were really, really good throws that guys dropped…I didn’t do the math, but over 100 yards passing, and then he made the really poor decision on that interception as we were moving there…but up to that point, he played really good. And didn’t practice the week before, playing on an ankle injury, too. So I was very proud of him how he played and competed.”