Tag: Lane Kiffin

Lane Kiffin breaks down how Rebels were able to secure win over Oklahoma

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin discussed what decided the game in Oklahoma’s 26-14 loss to the Rebels.

That the Oklahoma Sooners led at halftime of their loss to Ole Miss made the outcome even more disappointing. Even though the third quarter was a punt fest for the Sooners offense, late in the game, OU had a chance to pull within one score after moving the ball inside the red zone.

But a failed trick play on first down led to the Sooners facing a second-and-11. And from there, the Ole Miss defense simply teed off on Jackson Arnold.

On Oklahoma’s final three drives, Arnold was sacked seven times.

“It was good to have a lead, going great, and make it two [possessions], Kiffin said after the game. “We’ve been in that position with both our losses, with the ball, ahead one score, and not pushing it to two scores. Because when you push it to two, now they’ve got to throw more, and now our pass rush can come alive. And that’s really what I was hoping was happening when we had the ball in the last game [against LSU]…I think that helped getting to two scores [ahead], and they were able to pass rush more.”

It made all the difference in the ball game. For the first three quarters, the Sooners could maintain their offensive balance, using the run game to keep Ole Miss’ pass rushers from being able to simply rush the passer. But when Oklahoma got down 12 points and had to throw, the offensive line didn’t have an answer when they got into obvious passing situations.

When Oklahoma drove the ball into the red zone with about five minutes left to play, they failed to create a positive gain on first-and-10, and that allowed the Rebels to get after Jackson Arnold.

What had been a solid day upfront was blown up in the final moments as Ole Miss collected sack after sack en route to a record 10 sacks allowed by the Oklahoma Sooners.

It was a disappointing end of the game for the Sooners offensive line. A good defense was able to make OU one-dimensional. When that happens, it will be hard on any offensive line, but especially one that’s been struggling in 2024.

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5 takeaways from LSU’s overtime win over Ole Miss

Here are five takeaways from LSU’s thrilling win over Ole Miss.

LSU didn’t run a single play with the lead on Saturday night, but the Tigers led when it mattered the most — after the final play.

Down three, needing a touchdown to win, QB [autotag]Garrett Nussmeier[/autotag] found [autotag]Kyren Lacy[/autotag] in the endzone to upset No. 9 Ole Miss in front of a packed Tiger Stadium crowd.

LSU needed this win. A season-opening loss to USC trimmed the margin for error, but with this victory, LSU adds a signature win to its resume.

As for Ole Miss, it was the Rebels’ second loss of the year. Lane Kiffin’s group will most likely have to be perfect from here on out to remain in the playoff discussion.

LSU is right back in the thick of the national picture as SEC play heats up. The Tigers will play back-to-back road games at Arkansas and Texas A&M. Both will be tests, but LSU proved it is ready to compete on the big stage with Saturday’s win.

Here are five takeaways from LSU’s 29-26 overtime victory.

Garrett Nussmeier makes the play when it matters

[autotag]Garrett Nussmeier[/autotag] didn’t play his best football on Saturday night, but he made the plays when it mattered the most. With regulation winding down, Nussmeier delivered a strike to [autotag]Aaron Anderson[/autotag] to tie the game. On the first play of overtime, Nussmeier found Lacy for six.

Nussmeier was just 22/51 on the night, but when you look back at this performance, you’re going to remember the throws to Anderson and Lacy.

Equally important, was a throw to [autotag]Mason Taylor[/autotag] on fourth down to keep LSU alive on the final drive in the fourth.

LSU got resiliency from its senior quarterback on Saturday night.

Defense delivers

LSU opened its checkbook to land defensive coordinator [autotag]Blake Baker[/autotag]. The reasons why were evident on Saturday night.

Even as the offense got off to a slow start, the defense got the necessary stops. Ole Miss’ success rate on the night was just 37%, putting the Rebels in the 30th percentile.

LSU struggled on third down, but that’s about the only complaint. LSU was aggressive and made life hard on the ground and through the air. The unit made the necessary adjustments throughout the night to come up with stops in the fourth quarter.

The secondary played well and LSU’s young corners made plays in man coverage. That’s what LSU needs if it’s going to reach the playoff.

LSU’s run game is still an issue

LSU didn’t get much from its run game. The Tigers averaged -0.25 EPA/rush, far below an acceptable mark. 50% of LSU’s runs were stopped for two yards or less and that led to trouble on later downs.

[autotag]Caden Durham[/autotag] carried it 12 times for 37 yards and [autotag]Josh Williams[/autotag] ran it nine times for 34 yards. Both backs didn’t get much help from the offensive line as Ole Miss did a good job of plugging the holes.

We knew Ole Miss had a strong defensive front entering the night, but LSU looked outmatched when it tried to run the ball. That’s not a good sign with the defenses LSU has on deck.

LSU defense creates havoc

LSU got the big plays it needed from its defense. On the night, LSU generated 11 tackles for loss and six sacks.

[autotag]Bradyn Swinson[/autotag] and [autotag]Whit Weeks[/autotag] were active all night, getting pressure on Jaxson Dart and getting runs stops near or behind the line of scrimmage.

LSU knew it needed to keep Ole Miss off schedule to have a chance in this one. The big plays from the front seven prevented Kiffin’s offense from establishing a consistent rhythm.

LSU is back in the playoff race

LSU took a back seat in the playoff discussion these last few weeks, but a win over a top-10 opponent should move the needle.

It’s a long season, but this game had major playoff implications no matter the winner. LSU remains in control of its own destiny with the win while Ole Miss will need some help.

This win buys back some room for error for LSU. The Tigers can lose one down the stretch and still make the playoff at 10-2.

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Brian Kelly shares what’s different about LSU’s defense in 2024

Brian Kelly shared his thoughts on the state of LSU’s defense heading into 2024’s battle with Ole Miss.

Ole Miss hung 55 points on LSU in Oxford last year. It was one of the worst defensive performances in program history and the beginning of the end for former LSU defensive coordinator [autotag]Matt House[/autotag].

Following the season, head coach [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] made wholesale changes on the defensive side of the ball, hiring [autotag]Blake Baker[/autotag] away from Missouri to run the defense.

LSU faces Ole Miss again on Saturday. The Rebels’ offense is still dangerous and this provides a measuring stick for LSU’s defense.

Earlier this week, Kelly was asked about last year’s performance vs. Ole Miss.

“Obviously, you’re going to turn on the film from last year, and you’re going to look at it and go, okay, that’s not what we want to be defensively,” Kelly said.

“Players would say from a coaching standpoint and a playing standpoint, we’re much further along. That’s not the same defense,” Kelly said.

Ole Miss racked up 706 yards of total offense against LSU last year. 389 through the air and 317 on the ground.

Kelly said when you’re playing an up-tempo team like Ole Miss, the game comes down to getting lined up and tackling. LSU did neither of those things well last year.

Kelly said that the key on Saturday will be making Ole Miss one-dimensional. LSU can do that by putting pressure on Jaxson Dart and getting Lane Kiffin’s offense off schedule.

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Brian Kelly shares thoughts on Ole Miss potentially ‘faking’ injuries

Ole Miss has faced some scrutiny after a high number of injury timeouts in recent weeks.

Ole Miss secured a big win over South Carolina in week five, but the Rebels left the game facing some allegations of “faking injuries.”

The game featured 11 injury timeouts due to an Ole Miss player going down. Several of the stops came after South Carolina picked up a first-down or generated an explosive play.

South Carolina’s Shane Beamer had some thoughts after the game.

“It’s fascinating to me how many injuries occur for them after the opposing offense makes a first down or has a big play,” Beamer said. “You go back and watch the Wake Forest game, and it happens a lot to the same guy.”

With LSU set to play Ole Miss on Saturday, LSU head coach [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] was asked about the matter. He didn’t say much, but he did note the SEC has a policy in place to deal with fake injuries.

As far as it goes in-game, Kelly said the officials should stay out of it.

https://twitter.com/bhollandsports/status/1843338884916338798?s=46

Kelly’s take makes sense. You don’t want an official put in a spot to declare whether an injury is fake or not. It’s unfair to the official and in a situation where he makes the wrong call, it’s unfair to the player.

But if Ole Miss is faking injuries, it’s something the SEC should look into.

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Ole Miss’ trip to Death Valley gives LSU chance at revenge

LSU has a chance to exercise its demons from 2023 with a win over Ole Miss

Ole Miss dashed LSU’s playoff hopes last year with a shootout win in Oxford. LSU entered the game 3-1 with no margin for error thanks to a season opening loss to Florida State.

Ole Miss led 21-7 after the first quarter and from that point on, it was a track meet. LSU cut the deficit to three and Ole Miss led 31-28 at the half.

LSU’s defense buckled down in the third quarter, allowing just a field goal. That allowed LSU to take a 42-34 lead into the fourth, but the defense gave out and Ole Miss scored three touchdowns to LSU’s one in the final 15 minutes.

LSU dropped to 3-2 and was out of the playoff picture with two losses before the calendar struck October.

The Tigers have a chance to repay the favor on Saturday. Ole Miss enters this one 4-1 with national title hopes. The Rebels were upset by Kentucky two weeks ago but bounced back with an emphatic win over South Carolina on Saturday.

This is a swing game as far as the playoff picture goes. Both teams enter with a questionable loss and lack a signature win. The winner will be in a position to grab a playoff spot while the loser will likely need to win out or get some help.

Lane Kiffin has proven to be trouble for LSU since arriving in Oxford. LSU squeaked out a win in 2020 but was on the wrong end of a blowout in 2021. In 2022, LSU played the spoiler role in Tiger Stadium, staging a comeback to knock off the top 10 ranked Rebels.

If the recent back-and-forth nature of this series continues on Saturday, that’s good news for LSU.

LSU knows it left something on the table in that game last year. When the offense plays like that, it should be enough to win.

Jaxson Dart and Tre Harris carved LSU up in 2023. Both will be there when Ole Miss heads to Tiger Stadium on Saturday. This is a chance for the defense to show the progress it has made.

LSU fired its entire defensive staff following the season and the Ole Miss loss played a large part in sealing their fate. A good performance here would stand in stark contrast to the display put on in 2023.

The Tigers are coming off a bye and get a home game at night in Death Valley. It’s hard to ask for a much better situation than that.

These are the games that will come to define Brian Kelly’s tenure at LSU. There’s a chance here to exercise those demons from last year and demonstrate real progress towards Kelly’s ultimate goal at LSU — a national championship.

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Lane Kiffin: Coach Florida fans crave, but a few factors tie him down at Ole Miss

All eyes are on Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin—an enticing candidate whose family ties and recent success may keep him from making the jump to the Gators.

Many believe that the Billy Napier era at Florida football has come to an end, which would conclude a three-season stretch marked by underwhelming performance and missed expectations.

The Gators skipper is not quite out the door but the fanbase nonetheless has been clamoring for a replacement since the Week 1 loss at home to the Miami Hurricanes.

Presumably, the program is now searching for a replacement head coach to get things moving back in the right direction. There have been a number of candidates that fans have been hoping Florida can reel in, but none are as big as Ole Miss Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin.

Who wouldn’t want a coach like Kiffin? He brings the swagger, the charisma, and most importantly, creativity on the offensive side of the ball.

USA TODAY Sports writer Blake Toppmeyer wrote about a scenario that Florida football fans are hoping would happen to make everything line up to hire Kiffin.

“Florida fans who crave Lane Kiffin as their coach need the Rebels to lose a few games between now and Thanksgiving,” Toppmeyer wrote. “It’s a fine line: Win enough to still look desirable, but lose enough for Ole Miss to miss the College Football Playoff and make Kiffin wonder whether he’s hit his ceiling with the Rebels and ought to uproot and resettle in The Swamp.”

However, it may not be realistic at this point. Of course, we all remember back in 2009 when he suddenly left the Tennessee Volunteers to be the head coach for the USC Trojans after just one season, but things are different now.

He’s been in Oxford, Mississippi, for five years and has really enjoyed his time with the Rebels. Kiffin has settled in, and with the success he has going for him currently, it just doesn’t make sense for him to leave that all behind and start all over again in trying to man a rebuild for school.

Kiffin also has family ties with Oxford. His oldest daughter, Landry, is currently attending Ole Miss as a sophomore, and has been loving it. In fact, back in 2022 when Kiffin was rumored as the next head coach for the Auburn Tigers, it was Landry who convinced him to stay.

ESPN senior writer Chris Low revealed what Kiffin’s daughter, Landry, did to get him to stay with the Rebels. 

Low wrote, “Kiffin was leaning toward taking the Auburn job toward the end of the 2022 season when Landry came to him with a heartfelt message. ‘You left me one time for another job when you went to Alabama, and now I’m here with you and you’re going to do it again?’ she asked her father.”

Low continued, “Landry and her friends created a slideshow, complete with music, showing all of them together with Kiffin at Ole Miss.”

It just doesn’t seem logical for Kiffin to leave a school that his family loves.

Having worked under Nick Saban with the Alabama Crimson Tide, Kiffin may have learned the value of stability and long-term growth within a program. He might believe that continuing to develop the Ole Miss program will be more rewarding than jumping to a program that is currently in turmoil.

Kiffin has significantly improved the Rebels football program, achieving two seasons with at least 10 wins in the last five years, with the potential for a third this season. He has completely turned that program around and has helped his team make a bowl game every year he’s been there.

And now with the growth of Ole Miss’ NIL program, “The Grove Collective”, it has provided advantages in terms of recruiting and creating a presence with the transfer portal. Kiffin wouldn’t just throw that all behind and start from scratch at a new program.

With the way things are going with Florida in terms of desperately getting that program back to the mountaintop of college football, there needs to be an understanding that it will most likely take Kiffin some time to rebuild the program which can create pressure to produce immediate results.

While the allure of Kiffin’s coaching prowess and charisma may captivate Florida fans, the strong connections he has established at Ole Miss—coupled with the program’s recent successes and the stability he has built—suggest that it would be more prudent for him to continue his journey with the Rebels rather than embark on a challenging rebuild in Gainesville.

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Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin makes prediction for Alabama vs. Georgia

The former Alabama OC makes his pick.

A SEC head coach with ties to both programs, Ole Miss Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin has predicted the Alabama Crimson Tide to defeat the Georgia Bulldogs on Saturday night.

Kiffin unveiled the prediction as part of an interview during ESPN’s College Gameday in Tuscaloosa on Saturday morning, picking the Crimson Tide over the Bulldogs.

Currently the head coach at Ole Miss, Kiffin was a former offensive coordinator at Alabama from 2014-16 where he helped lead the Crimson Tide to the 2015 national championship. At Alabama, Kiffin was also on staff with current Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, who was the Crimson Tide’s defensive coordinator at the time.

Not the only person to pick the Crimson Tide on College Gameday earlier this morning, will Kiffin’s prediction of an Alabama victory end up coming true tonight in Tuscaloosa?

Brian Kelly hilariously trolled Lane Kiffin about Coca-Cola comments

The rivalry between Brian Kelly and Lane Kiffin has added another chapter.

Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin may be in hot water with a sponsor after comments he made during a press conference earlier this week.

“Does anybody drink Coke?” Kiffin asked reporters at the press conference. “130 percent of your sugar for the entire day is in this one bottle.”

Kiffin added that it had been a “long time” since he had indulged in a Coke.

While Kiffin may be right about the health consequences, it likely wasn’t music to the ears of The Coca-Cola Company as a sponsor. At his press conference on Tuesday, LSU coach [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] seemingly took a shot at Kiffin, trolling him as he gave what sounded like an ad read for Smartater.

“Just a shout out to our sponsor, Coke,” Kelly said. “Smartwater, great Coke product. Minerals, vitamins, it’s just great for you. It’s refreshing, healthy. Coke provides you all the products that you need.”

It’s not the first time one of the two coaches has taken a thinly veiled shot at the other, and after splitting their first two matchups against each other in the SEC, they’ll face off this fall in Baton Rouge for the rubber match in a game that could have playoff implications.

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Brian Kelly trolls another SEC coach during a press conference

So we’re laughing with Kelly, not at him???

Although [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] is no longer associated with Notre Dame football, we still keep tabs on what “Bayou Brian” has been doing at LSU.

He’s once again trending on social media. This time it isn’t for his atrocious dancing, but for trolling Ole Miss head coach [autotag]Lane Kiffin[/autotag]. Kiffin is someone who he has past issues with.

As the video below shows, the Rebels leader went to the podium and questioned why people would drink Coca-Cola, one of their sponsors. It was an odd rant by Kiffin, probably shouldn’t have wondered this out loud.

Well, Kelly met with the media today, and subtly sent a jab to Kiffin, pointing out SmartWater and Coca-Cola as great products.

It’s a funny interaction between the two, and we will see if it makes any difference when the two teams face-off against each other on Oct. 12.

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Brian Kelly continued LSU-Ole Miss feud by trolling Lane Kiffin over his Coca-Cola rant

Brian Kelly doesn’t want a piece of Lane Kiffin. He wants the WHOLE thing.

As the 2024 college football season nears, it sure looks like LSU’s Brian Kelly still wants all of the smoke from Ole Miss’s Lane Kiffin. He couldn’t have made it more obvious during a Wednesday press conference in Baton Rouge.

The public feud between the respective schools’ football programs is definitely back on.

Just days after Kiffin went viral for a random tangent about how unhealthy Coca-Cola is for people, Kelly strolled to the podium immediately pontificating about how much he enjoys Smartwater — a Coca-Cola product — and all Coca-Cola products in general. (Especially because they’re an apparent sponsor of LSU athletics.)

Because he also said it before taking any questions, it was abundantly clear Kelly was making reference to Kiffin’s rant:

I get that Kelly probably has a healthy distaste for Kiffin, and I appreciate his going out of the way to hate an SEC rival. But did he really have to go the commercial route, talking about how much he loves an endorsed product out loud? I can’t lie. I didn’t even really laugh at this little exchange. I probably would’ve given him a fake laugh if I had been there in person.

Who am I kidding? It’s not as if Kelly has a good pulse about not sounding and looking incredibly corny.

Ole Miss and LSU will meet in this year’s Magnolia Bowl on October 12. Stay tuned because more fireworks between Kiffin and Kelly are probably on the way.