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Lane Kiffin explains how Ole Miss designed its line of scrimmage to beat Georgia
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Lane Kiffin knew that in order to fix his program and contend for a Playoff spot in 2024, the situation in the trenches had to be fixed first. And the Ole Miss head coach knew it last fall when the Rebels allowed an alarming 611 total yards in a 52-17 beatdown of a loss at Georgia.
Almost a year to the day later, Ole Miss showed that much progress had been made in that area, as the Rebels only allowed 246 total yards to the Bulldogs in a 28-10 victory last Saturday that kept the Rebels firmly in the Playoff discussion.
It was possibly the best win of the Kiffin era in Oxford, and he went on The Dan Patrick Show on Tuesday to explain how he re-designed his defensive line to set the Rebels up for success:
“We wanted to beat Georgia, so we went out … we changed the size of our line of scrimmages, the twitch of our (defensive ends) in order to pass rush against them,” said Kiffin.
.@Lane_Kiffin discusses making a decision to change his line of scrimmage after getting beat 53-17 by Georgia last year.
"We wanted to beat Georgia, so we went out… We changed the size of our line of scrimmages, the twitch of our D-ends in order to pass rush against them." pic.twitter.com/6xeUyDpOab
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) November 12, 2024
Well, what Kiffin did worked. Ole Miss’s re-worked defensive line dominated in the trenches, holding Georgia to 10 points and sacking Carson Beck 5 times in the dominant victory. One year after Beck torched the Rebels for over 300 yards passing, he only managed 186 yards on Saturday, didn’t throw a touchdown pass and was intercepted once.
“Really outside of Alabama, nobody has beat Georgia since COVID,” Kiffin said. “If you’re going to go win a championship, to me it’s got to go through Georgia, so you better build your team to be able to beat Georgia.”
The Rebels have a bye this week before heading to The Swamp to face Florida on Nov. 23.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
