TRANSCRIPT: Everything Ole Miss Head Coach Lane Kiffin said on Weekly SEC Coaches Teleconference

OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin took questions on the weekly SEC Football Coaches Teleconference Wednesday afternoon. He talked about the Rebels’ upcoming game against Arkansas, his decision to kick field goals when he did against Kentucky, and more.

Here’s everything Coach Kiffin had to say:

Host: Coach, while we wait on any questions, if you could please take a moment to comment on your team as you enter this week’s game versus Arkansas.

Lane Kiffin: Yeah, excited to be back home in front of our crowd. We’ve been fortunate to have a good run here. I think they said 14-1 and 27-3 in the last 30 or something. So, you know, our program has come a long ways and the crowd has come a long ways, too when I think about from the beginning, so that’s exciting to have full stadiums and have phenomenal student energy. So very competitive team coming in that’s got a lot of really good players and obviously the most important thing for a good team is a quarterback. And they’ve got a really special one that’s really good and really a problem. So, we’re going to have our hands full in a defense that plays extremely hard and, really outside of our game, for the most part, really held people down last year.

Question: Hey, Lane, I saw where you said earlier in the week that Luke Hasz might be available. I wonder what the latest update on him is and and what Patrick Kutas has looked like for you this year.

Lane Kiffin: Yeah. I mean, I’ve really got the same update for you. Luke might be available. Kutas has done a really good job. Really a great leader, really brings great work ethic. A lot of credit to him, a lot of credit to Sam (Pittman) too. When when we get guys from certain programs, we can tell that they’ve been trained really well, how they work. So, we’re glad we got them.

Question: Talking about last year’s game, Sam Pittman noticed that he thought you guys didn’t run your plays, weren’t running the offense as fast as sometimes you do. And there was a lot more look to me’s on the sideline. I wonder if you thought that was the case and what the, uh, benefit of that was?

Lane Kiffin: Huh, You want our plays we’re going to run, too? (Laughing) Yeah. I can’t really comment on that. Sorry. I do think, though, the game was an example of just every play went our way, every call, every ball was almost perfectly thrown. So it was just really one of those games that every once in a while happens. You know, where kind of every break went our way.

Question: Coach. Appreciate the time. I wanted to ask in particular of a couple of times that you kicked field goals last week against Kentucky. Is that just more trust there in your kicker? Or tell me, maybe something at philosophy change or it’s just something I noticed.

Lane Kiffin: Every game is different, you know? Every year is different, but every game is different. Who you’re playing and how it’s going. And even, you know, playing those guys, Kentucky, the couple years before that and how the games went and we’ve been able to play pretty good defense against them. So just kind of thought that game called for those in those moments on the road, young quarterback. So spend been a lot of time in analytics and you know, specific game based.

Question: Well what impresses you about Arkansas defensively heading into this game coach.

Lane Kiffin: Yeah, they play really hard and playing really fast and giving people a lot of problems. They’re playing as well as anybody. So you know, we’re going to have to deal with their improved speed on defense. And, you know, we’re going to have to be ready for a lot.

Next Up:

Ole Miss hosts Arkansas Saturday at Vaught-Hemingway. Kickoff is set for 6:00 p.m. CT and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.