TRANSCRIPT: Everything Lane Kiffin said after Ole Miss’ 24-19 win over LSU

OXFORD, Miss. — It was a happy press conference for Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin and players after the Rebels’ 24-19 win over LSU Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway. Coach Kiffin met with media after the win and here’s everything he had to say.

Lane Kiffin’s Opening Statement

All right. A lot of credit to LSU. That was a very competitive, really a awesome game, I would think, to watch. I mean, even if you weren’t LSU or Ole Miss fans. Some stars kind of came out and and showed up today. I thought that their defense was as advertised. I mean, they’re loaded on defense. So, they got a lot of players that make a lot of plays. And I told Brian Kelly in warmups, I was like, ‘You guys look like an NFL team down there.’ So, I think when that happens, you know, it’s a lot of players who have got to play really well when you play great players (like LSU) and assistant coaches got to coach really well.

So, the last thing I told our coaches before we go out there was, ‘you’re going to earn your money today in this one. It’s not going to be easy.’ And I thought our guys made a lot of really big calls in the game defensively and offensively. Pete (Golding) and Charlie (Weis) and the players have got to make the plays when you do that. So I’m really pleased with that. You know, too many penalties today. We had the two turnovers, you know, and probably wouldn’t have expected the game to be kind of so lopsided in first downs, 28 to 16, and yards, 480 to 254.

So that makes me feel good about our players because that’s a lot of players doing right if you’re going to, you know, out gain over 200 yards against LSU with all those great players they have. So I hope our fans had a good day. Appreciate them not rushing the field. So, I think — not to take away from probably extra security probably helped — but to me that’s really cool that you get to a place at a program that you do beat the No. 3 team in the country, and you don’t rush the field because we did what we’re supposed to do and that’s win the game. And so, that makes me happy that this program’s got to that place.

Question: Lane. LSU had cut it to 17-13 after the turnover. And you guys, it was late third quarter, y’all had the drive. You even had a couple of penalties in that drive that backed you up. Yet you guys converted on all of those. Ended up scoring and taking a lead. What does that say about the, I guess, the resilience of this team a little bit, that there were opportunities there to kind of lose momentum. And you didn’t, it didn’t happen.

Lane: Yeah. Sometimes as a coach, I admit some of it runs together. But I think you’re talking about when we get the penalty, Kewan has the run to make the first down, and then we get another holding penalty and then it goes to the third. Yes, on Kewan’s run to the left. And then so it goes to 3rd and what I thought was like ten. And they moved it back more as they had a timeout to 14. We hit the in route so that that was huge, we actually flipped Deuce over there. It’s not really where he normally is on that route and told Trinidad, ‘hey let’s go backside to him.’ And those two made the play.

So it was good. I thought there was good things. Deuce made a number of plays early. I think that wasn’t hard to figure out, you know. We left their good corner over there and and went after the other corner and the freshman when they put him in and guys made plays. You know, when you have that many great players on defense, you got to find a really good one that’s below the other great ones and try to win that matchup. So, I thought our guys did that today over there on that away from him.

Question: Lane, on the fourth down call that sealed the game there. I mean you could have taken the field goal. Did you think twice at all about that one. And kind of what was the play design to get Dae’Quan so open and seal it?

Lane: Yeah, there was a lot of time there in discussion. Like even as the first down happened, I felt like, you know, they’re hard, they’re really good players when especially when they know you’re running there at the end. We’re obviously not going to throw on those first couple downs and Trinidad ran out of bounds, so that didn’t help us, which was a play inside that he bounced all the way out.

But so I’d talked that through a lot in my head and had a feeling it was going to come down there somewhere between 4th and 6 and 4th and 1 or something, and then you’re going to get in that really long field goal to go to eight. If you miss it, you got a chance to lose. And I actually clicked over to Pete and I said, ‘Pete, here’s the situation. I’m thinking of going for it. But we can kick the long field goal.’ And he’s like ‘Go for it.’ So, that’s easy to say when you’re a defensive coordinator. I just saw him on the way up the steps and I said,’You know, hey, I’m glad we did that.’ And he goes, he goes, ‘You would have never been able to live with it if you didn’t do it.’ So, that’s just how we play. And I’m not saying that arrogantly. That’s a lot of  — and the book would tell you to do that right there too, analytics would tell you. They (LSU) went away from analytics and didn’t kick on their fourth down to go to one score, which was highly abnormal, but they don’t really follow that stuff.

And so when you play somebody like that, it gets a little bit scary because they don’t really do what they’re supposed to do. And sometimes it works like it did when they made the fourth down instead of kicking it. But again, the players got to make the plays. It was a route we’d obviously told him before that the previous two downs that, ‘hey, first down, get down.’ I mean, like, the game’s over. We actually don’t want to score a touchdown because technically that’s happened before, where a team goes and scores a touchdown, onside and scores again. So that’s the way to seal the game is to go down once you get it. And Dae’Quan finally went down. It seemed like it took forever. It’s actually what we were trying to get Tre Harris to do versus LSU two years ago when he scored.

Question: Just another 300-yard day for for Trinidad. Just what can you say about him at this point?

Lane: Yeah, just really he was pretty emotional afterwards in there and really cool hug and said, ‘I love you’ and these things. And he was just so appreciative for the opportunity. But it’s just a really cool story. I like good stories. You know, here’s a little short kid from Division 2, going against Nussmeier and the Mighty Tigers at little Ole Miss. So, it was really cool. And for him to go out of bounds like he shouldn’t and then make a play to end it was awesome. Hope it’s just a really cool story for a lot of people.

Question: Coach, A lot of people stepped up for you today. One player that we haven’t seen a lot of Winston Watkins wide receiver.

Lane: Yeah big day for him. Winnie’s going to be a great player here. Shoot, I’m not supposed to say that because then everybody will go buy him in the portal (smiling). Forgot I’m not supposed to do that anymore. I mean, he’s just ‘okay’ (smiling). You know, he really doesn’t know his plays and stuff, so you know it really, it’ll be a couple years before he’s good (joking). You know, Winne’s awesome, he’s a really good player. It’s cool because Jordan and then Cayden and now him in that same spot. And so, you know, we put him in there and he gives Cayden some rest and he’s made a play every time we’ve put him in. And so he made some today.

Question: Just a follow up on that quarterback question. Has he done enough to earn the starting job full time?

Lane: Yeah. It must be a big game if you’re here. You just waited for that one question. Hey, we got a bye week coming up at 5-0, and 3-0, first place in the conference. So it’s a good problem to have. I don’t have that answer right now. And I don’t need to have it right now. We have two really good quarterbacks. And that’s a really good thing to have because I think you see around the country, people usually when they lose their quarterback, you know their team changes a lot. And Austin got hurt. And we’re still able to play the way that we’ve played. And it’s really it’s a really good problem to have.

Question: Lane, a couple of weeks ago, you guys played Arkansas. Your defense gave up 35 points. You know, you guys have a great game against Tulane. Now, you shut down the number four offense or number four team in the country. You know, how much have you seen them improve over the last few weeks. And how encouraging has that been, you know, going into this bye week?

Lane: Yeah they did a great job today. And Golding had a great plan. We screwed the thing up last year offensively. We should have won that game 100 times down there in Baton Rouge last year, and they had to sit with that for a year. You know, we were ahead with the ball with four points going in to score again, down to make it a two score game and settle for a field goal. And you guys know the rest of it.

But I think that’s a really good response the last two weeks on defense after a really poor Arkansas game right here. And I thought that they did great today. I know LSU has struggled this year offensively, but they still have great players. I mean, they got great receivers and obviously Nussmeier is a really good quarterback. And I think that we held him to his career low with basically almost all brand new defensive players. So, it’s pretty cool. This team only returned four starters. So really proud of these guys, how they’ve gelled together, you know, to be 5-0 and first place in the SEC coach.

Question: On that note of having so many new people, uh, this year. What does having three SEC games early in the season, winning them all and winning a game like today do for a group like that, that’s trying to form an identity and seemingly already has so early.

Lane: Yeah, I think I guess kind of the theme of the week with all the questions about the show and stuff has been like, you know, what you think you want may not be what’s best for you. And I wouldn’t have told you coming in, ‘Yeah, put all these SEC games up front with a brand new team.’ But it’s worked out well. It’s made our guys step up right away, make plays and have a sense of urgency right away instead of playing four non-conference right away. So it’s worked out really well.

Question: Coach. At critical points in the game, especially early, you guys, it just seemed like every flag was going against you guys. How did you guys kind of keep your composure over there on the sideline? 14 penalties for 109 yards. That’s double what LSU had seven penalties. It’s double you guys had. Do you feel like the field was kind of sweet in one direction by the officials.

Lane: That’s a really big set up question right there. So our fans avoided us a $500,000 fine today. And you’re setting me up for a big fine if I comment how I want to on that? No, I mean, our players calmed down finally. But they had way too many penalties early and kept drives alive on the other side of the ball. And, so we’ve got to get those things cleaned up, obviously. But, you know, we lose the turnover margin. We have way more penalties. So if you’re going to win the game with those things that are very critical, you would have had to outplay them in a lot of areas. And you know, the third downs especially, we’re eight of 16 and they’re two of 11. And obviously the total yards and first downs. So good spot to be in going into a bye.

Question: Yeah it following up a little bit of a different avenue there. But after the game Austin was pretty emotional with Trinidad. They embraced each other on the sideline. I think you were in the middle of your interview. Um, what does it say about Austin’s character that he has just taken Trinidad under his wing this year? I mean, Trinidad being an older guy as well.

Lane: Yeah. Austin’s been a stud, battling his way back through injury, being ready to play today. He would have done a great job if he was fully healthy and would have went in there and you know, says a lot about him because that’s not easy. It’s not easy. And you’ve been waiting to be the starter for a couple of years, waiting for Jaxson to leave. And, so really proud of him, how he’s handled that.

Question: No sacks today for LSU. Uh, what do you have to say about the offensive line and how it’s kind of progressed up to this point of the season?

Lane: Well, they did a really good job. Not with the holdings in the run plays. But they did protect well. You know, one thing in evaluating Trinidad, he rarely gets sacked. I’m not taking away from the offensive line, but he does a really, he’s got really quick feet and good awareness around him. Good pocket presence. Um, and if you look at since he started playing, how few turnovers he had. He just had his first one today. And then I think he’s only been sacked twice and one was a one-yard when he ran out of bounds. So that’s a good combination to have your O-line improving against great d-linemen like that. And Trinidad does a really good job of getting out of trouble.

Question: You kind of touched on it in your opening about the crowd not storming and what that means for maybe where this program is, but purely from the money side, I’m curious with what $500,000 buys you in the portal these days. Like, is that a conversation you have to have about the the money side and how important it is.

Lane: It gets you half of one of their DBs. Just since you you’re asking. But I just think it says a lot of where we’re at, you know. We lost down there and LSU stormed the field last year against Ole Miss, and that didn’t seem like that’s supposed to happen. And then here we beat them here and we don’t storm the field. So good spot to be in.

Question: I asked you last week after the Tulane game, just personally how it felt to kind of have a completely new team, new quarterback, but still retain the same staff. How did it feel going 4-0, and going into LSU weekend, now 5-0 after LSU uh, sitting on that loss for a year now. How does it feel after so many penalties and felt like the game was going back and forth. Just personally for you? How does this win feel? How does it feel going 5-0 with the backup quarterback in right now? What are the emotions for you after a win like this?

Lane: Well, these games they feel good when you win them. You know, when the other team is loaded with players and has NFL players all over the place, which you’ll see in the draft the next two years coming out of there. That feels good because you got to do a lot of things right, coaching and playing to beat them. So yeah, that’s a really good feeling for that game to go the way that it did and the ball control in the game and the way that we played. Really good feeling. And yeah, there’s a obviously, there’s a feeling that’s twice now where we screwed two games up a year ago, ahead in both Kentucky and LSU, and have been able to to finish the games this year against the same people.

Question: Yeah, you alluded to it a little bit right there. But a couple games now where you’ve been able to run the clock and win the game when maybe that was a little bit tougher last year. Is that as simple as as new players like Kewan and Trinidad, new linemen, or is there a mental part to this?

Lane: No, most coaches would come up here and say mental, you know, like we did all these new things. No, Kewan’s really good. And Trinidad’s a really quick runner. So those will help you when you’re trying to close out games because you’ve got to run the ball. And so that’s a good combination to have, you know, in what you call like the four-minute offense. Those are always a problem on defense. Just like when we play, if they got a really fast running back and a really quick quarterback, they’re a lot harder to defend.