Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss can’t seem to shake Auburn.
The 10th-ranked Rebels dropped their sixth straight game to the 18th-ranked Tigers on Saturday night, falling 31-20 at Jordan-Hare Stadium. The win for Auburn gave the program its biggest to date under first-year coach Bryan Harsin and kept the Tigers in the hunt for the SEC West crown.
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Ole Miss’ offense struggled on the Plains, particularly in the second half as Auburn’s defense answered the call and limited Kiffin’s offense to a lone field goal over the final two quarters. After the game, Kiffin met with the media via Zoom. Here’s a look at what the second-year Rebels coach had to say:
LANE KIFFIN, Ole Miss coach
Opening statement…
“Hats off to Auburn. They played really tough and it’s a very tough environment to play in. The crowd was great. Bo [Nix] made a lot of plays especially early on. I thought our defense, after struggling early, played exceptionally well. They gave us a bunch of chances offensively to win. We don’t make three fourth downs in the red zone and throw another interception, so that’s four times in the red zone with no points. That’s going to be hard to win. To be in an 11-point game with that says you must be doing something right on the other side of the ball, which we did on defense.
“Matt [Corral] battled to come back in and [Dontario] Drummond went down so Matt was down to none of his initial three receivers or initial tight end so really credit to Jahcour Pearson and Casey Kelly; strong, two walk on kids that really are doing a great job out there. Both had seven catches and there was 200 yards between the two of them. And very courageous by Matt to come back out. Just really a play he had not made since last year, like that. He’s human, you know? He made one and it’s unfortunate. And I think that’s it. It’s a product of forcing.
“You know you get frustrated when all of sudden we’re having three and outs to start the second half. That is a problem when you’re not getting a lot of plays made and the run game is not going well. It’s hard not to press, especially when they did.”
On Ole Miss’ red-zone issues…
“They did a good job but it wasn’t any special or good defense or anything. When you get in the red zone, space tightens down. If you’re not running the ball well, you’re going to have tight windows. You’ve got to make big plays and we didn’t do that. Obviously, you can sit here and say we should’ve kicked field goals but we made a lot of those. Converted more than anybody in the country. When it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”
On struggles with the run game tonight…
“I don’t think it takes a lot to figure out. If you lead the nation in rushing outside of triple-option teams coming into the game, your quarterback is limping and your receivers are hurt, it’s pretty easy to figure out what to do: Stack the box, stop the run, condense your rush lanes. Which is what they came out to do. They made you try to win outside. It’s a good plan by them. I think most of you would’ve done the same.
On when he realized Matt Corral could return from his ankle injury…
“I thought the way he came off that it was really bad, like, broken. So, I kind of had already gone to that place. So I was surprised he came back, especially came back to have some movement skill. Which was awesome. I was in the tank. Any time something like that happens you’re like ‘Well, we should’ve had a better play on the first down where he got hit or injured.’ It was obviously good to have him back there.”
On second-half defensive adjustments…
“I thought we played well by tackling. Bo (Nix) keeps drives alive, as you’ve seen like the LSU game. You can play good defense and be right there but you can’t tackle the guy. That happened to us early on. When he does that, they’re long sacks if you make them. He was getting out of them but then we started making some of them.”
Tom Green is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Tomas_Verde.
