What Lane Kiffin said after Ole Miss' overtime win at Kentucky
Lane Kiffin has Kentucky’s number in Lexington, especially in overtime. His last win as Tennessee’s head coach came on Nov. 28, 2009, when the Volunteers defeated the Wildcats 30-24 in overtime. Saturday, Kiffin beat UK in overtime, again as Ole Miss won 42-41.
After his first win as the head coach of the Rebels, Kiffin spoke to reporters discussing his team’s come-from-behind effort as well as various individual performances. Here are the highlights of what he had to say, per The Rebel Walk:
- On late stops by the defense: “We did make some stops. We obviously have to play better than that. We made some stops in the second half that gave us a chance to win.”
- On how to win in the SEC: “In this conference, I don’t think you can be finesse and win a lot. You’ve got to be physical.”
- On Jonathan Mingo: “He stepped up. 128 yards and a couple of TDs.”
- More on Mingo, being physical: “It’s a great attitude. I wish we’d have that attitude all over. He made the most of his plays today.”
- On the offense: “Obviously you want to run the ball well but you go with what they give you. This is a Cover 3 team. They force you to throw the ball. 24-of-29 is pretty effective at that.”
- On playing from behind: “They’ve done a good job. I feel like they actually played better from behind. It was good. We screwed up the speed option down at the goal line. I thought that was maybe going to haunt us. We should’ve walked in there. Really good to fight back from that.”
- On defending against Kentucky’s 408 rushing yards: “The way they were running the ball, you’ve got to make them drive the length of the field.”
- On Matt Corral: “I thought he played better today than last week. Last week guys were open. He had to make a lot of plays against a rush and we weren’t protecting him well. He took a shot in the 4th and went to the locker room and then came back out. He was in there 6-7 min.”