MONDAY PRESSER: Everything Lane Kiffin said ahead of Ole Miss’ game at Oklahoma

OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin held his weekly press conference Monday as the Rebels prepare to take on Oklahoma in Norman Saturday.

Here’s everything Coach Kiffin had to say:

Lane Kiffin’s opening statement

Alright, so good to get back to work today, putting the last game to rest with the lessons to learned from it, which we talked about with you guys last night, and then move forward this morning onto an extremely challenging opponent.

Another really hard road game, so, glad we had one to prepare us for that and what it’s like to play in a really loud environment. And so hopefully that’ll help us as we go into this one. These guys (Oklahoma) have got a phenomenal quarterback that can do everything. It’s probably, I don’t know this, but feels like looking at it probably statistically the best defense we’ve ever played here.

You know, basically hardly anybody’s done anything against them. I think they’ve given up six, five or six touchdowns all year long. I think, two in the first half of games, which is just incredible numbers. And Brent’s (Venables) done an awesome job whenever he’s led the defense. I think every year but one they’ve had top ten finishes, which is just a just a phenomenal job of how hard he gets him to play.

They’ve got great players and now that he’s had a couple years to get these guys in there and get them trained and coached, and they’re playing — not “as” well — they’re playing better than any defense in the country and they’ve basically shut everybody down and phenomenal.

I mean, they got games, as you guys know, the TV copies player — I’m walking by their last week’s game, South Carolina. And South Carolina’s 0-10 on third downs at that point of the game. So they’ve done an amazing job. And he just somehow gets the information to the guys. And they do a great job of playing plays. You know, they just do things that are very abnormal when they see plays that they think are coming and go to take away and go to pick them off. And so this will be a really great test for us. And obviously we need to get back on track defensively after last week. So we’ve looked at a lot of different things with that to try to fix that.

Question: You know, leading to that second straight road game, just having to be able to go back and review and look, how do you feel Trinidad did in that environment, knowing he’s got another one coming up here Saturday?

Lane Kiffin: Yeah, I talked to Trinidad. Really I felt like it’d be like a baseball pitcher maybe to go and play at Fenway or something — really hard place to play against a great defensive coached team in Kirby and Schuman that have shut down a lot of quarterbacks and (caused) a lot of bad quarterback ratings. And I felt like (Trinidad) pretty much probably pitched 6 or 7 innings of almost no-hit ball, you know, certainly shutout ball, if you’re putting in a baseball pitching analogy and then didn’t finish it off there at the end, on the last couple drives. Had he, it would have been a historical, I mean, historical game, you know, to continue at the rate he was playing at or pitching in this analogy, and would have been been amazing to do. But, we didn’t finish it off offensively. And, it’s too bad because those were six, seven really phenomenal innings that he pitched, if you put it in that perspective, in a very hard place to place to play.

Question: You mentioned Oklahoma’s quarterback a little while ago, also a new offensive coordinator this year. Just how different do they look offensively this year than than a year ago?

Lane Kiffin: Yeah, I mean night and day very different. And this guy’s done a great job. He presents a lot of problems, runs the quarterback, plus one runs, moves them around. And then they’ve (QB and OC) got a background together, which obviously helps too. So, this is a really big challenge. They do they do a great job. You know, they’ve always had this defense. They really got this defense fixed the last couple of years. And now they got their offense fixed. And now you got a top ten team like they have, you know, what you’re supposed to have at Oklahoma.

Question: Coach, in reference to fixing their (OU) defense, it seems like depth on the defensive line, they rotate like 8 or 9 guys throughout the game.

Lane Kiffin: Yeah, they’re coached really well. They have some backups come in and they look similar in how fast they get off on the ball. And, they got really good players that are coached really well. That’s a really good combination in a very aggressive, almost like defense mindset. I feel like he plays kind of like a lot of offense or some offenses play sometimes where it’s like when he has them and he has them down, he doesn’t get conservative. It’s like he’s going to really try to like keep going. And it’s why you see some of these games where it’s just, you know, the offensive numbers are so far down here because he just never lets up. And I think that’s not necessarily always how defensive coaches call it. I think that’s maybe a little more some offensive coaches do that. So I think he’s taking that mindset and he really knocks people out.

Question: I was wondering if you could elaborate on what it is that you think they’re able to do to sort of know what’s coming sometimes. Other teams don’t seem to be able to to do.

Lane Kiffin: Well, I think that’s two-part. I think one, it’s phenomenal prep, you know, a film study of signals. I mean that, you know, as I just tell you how it is, I think they do a great job of that. So if you study people really well and then you have enough confidence as a coach to go after those, that seems what he does and seems like, you know, they’ve got a really good bead on the plays that are coming when they’re called, and they do a great job of going and taking those away. And you look at the Auburn game, I mean, I told Hugh after the game watching it, I mean, you might want to switch signals, like it looks like they have the plays, the safety is running down to steal slants which is very abnormal.

Question: You may have just answered my next question, but with that in mind, do you have to kind of shake everything up from a signal standpoint this week, or do you do that every week anyway?

Lane: No, we’re going to keep our same signals.

Question: I mean, I guess I was, was wondering do you do that every week or is that, is that something that you have to specifically address because of who you’re playing?

Lane: Yeah, that’s a really good question. And competitively, I can’t answer that for you. We’ll have an off season seminar on that for you, teach you how that works.

Question: Kewan (Lacy) is coming off his third multi-touchdown game of the year. How helpful has it been to have him in the backfield to be able to balance out your offense?

Lane: Yeah, Kewan has done an amazing job. You know, I always look at things not like, ‘oh, how well did you do them?’ and sit on that? I always look at things and say, ‘Okay, how could we have done something differently,’ you know? And I kind of wish we would have got him the ball there in the fourth quarter as they (Georgia) were driving a lot. But at the same time too, in my opinion, you move versus Georgia through throwing, especially their defense this year, and it’s a lot harder to run against them. That’s why you saw a pass-heavy game or quarterback run game. And it worked, five series of five touchdowns. So it’s kind of hard to go away from that. But looking back, obviously, when you know we missed some of the throws, you say, ‘well man I wish we kind of would have given it to him.’ But, he’s done a great job.

Question: And how big is that in road games, especially in a stadium like that, to be able to establish a ground game?

Lane: Yeah, I think it’s just such a different feeling. You know, when you go to Georgia and play that defense in that environment and there’s no turnovers, no sacks and no tackles for loss. Probably tell you we would’ve won and probably won by a couple scores. But we don’t block them perfect every time, you know, and Georgia had some good plays and players make plays. And Kewan would still make a yard or two off of a negative run. So that really is a really good feeling always to have, especially on the road.

Question: How have you seen the guys today kind of bounce back, kind of flush Saturday?

Lane: I mean, we worked on that. It wasn’t a real feel-good team meeting this morning, you know, and (there were) some plays to really point out where we didn’t feel like that should be the effort that was given in any game, let alone when you’re in that spot. And how hard it is to beat Georgia and to get up two scores, late in the third, and to have that opportunity to remember that forever, you know, that we let that slip away. So, I think that that meeting went well and I think that they’ll be ready to go this week.

Question: Are you planning on tweaking anything, routine wise or schedule wise or message wise with this, an 11 a.m. game coming up?

Lane: Yeah. I mean, I’ve looked at that, you know, but at the same time, too, that Arkansas 63-30 game was at 11 a.m. So, you know, just a few things scheduling, but nothing major.

Question: And then, is it fun at all for for you and the offensive guys to get a chance to scheme up some plays with Trinidad and Austin (Simmons) both on the field?

Lane: Yeah it is. You know, you got two really good players that have really unique skill sets. And to be able to put them both in there was good. And we have phenomenal confidence in both of them. And we’re probably one of the only teams in the country that, regardless of who was in, we would be aggressive, whether it was whichever quarterback, because we we think both guys are great.

Question: Coach, this Oklahoma offense has thrived in the red zone this year. What did you see from your secondary, and defense in general, maybe against Georgia in the red zone, which they struggled in? And how do you kind of turn those things around and get ready to go to Oklahoma this weekend?

Lane: Yeah, I think Georgia did a great job. I think Mike Bobo had a really good plan. But at the same time, too, there’s things that we had taken away where we just didn’t do basic assignments. And you just see people wide open. You know, we don’t blitz the gap we’re supposed to on third and seven, and they run the ball for a first down. So part of it was really good execution by Georgia, and part of it was us not even giving ourselves a chance, by not not executing a call right.

Question: I know you faced Oklahoma last year, but what do you remember about the 2015-2016 national championship game when you were the OC at Alabama and Brent was the DC at Clemson? And what has his defense has shown since that time for you to really make them one of the best in the country every year?

Lane: Just really multiple, does a lot of things. Like, I don’t know how he gets it all practiced and called because they do so much and he’s been that way forever. I mean, we had him in the national championship the year you’re referring to, returned to  Alabama. Clemson had him all the way back, as co-coordinator when he was in the Orange Bowl, the Oklahoma-USC, Oklahoma, Orange Bowl. So, we’ve had a lot of past with him and he’s always really hard to game plan against.

Question: Waiting to ask this til the end, but I saw your videos either late Friday or Saturday morning. How did you kind of take in the Oxford game and what Knox (Kiffin) was able to do there at the end?

Lane: That was awesome. I mean, for a dad. I wish I could have been there, but I was watching it on the phone, you know, on the feed and there’s just something that only dads can explain about their kid playing ball and going down and winning the game like that. It was just awesome.

You kind of wake up, the same thing when you have a big win as a coach, you know, you wake up and I can always say like, the sun’s brighter, coffee’s better, everything’s good, no matter what. Somebody can say something to you and you don’t even care. You know, like they’re honking at you and you just wave at them anyway.

And, so I had that feeling — even bigger — Saturday morning in Georgia. And I was so happy when he got (to Georgia) there for the game, he was able to get over for the game and to see him. And I mean, that’s what it’s all about. You know, Kirby said it. We were talking before and he actually left me a message because I sent Kirby the highlights on our little group chat. And so they were fired up for Knox. And he just said, there’s nothing like high school football, man. And we talked about it before the game, like it’s just not the same. It’s definitely not in the NFL. And now college has moved more towards the NFL and it’s so pure. And so it was awesome.