Lane Kiffin heaps praise on linebackers after calling them question mark before season

Lane Kiffin is working with a brand new roster in his third season at Ole Miss. Following the Rebels’ Sugar Bowl appearance last season, Kiffin lost a lot of his primary playmakers to graduation or to the NFL. So the Rebels had to replenish in a massive way. Whether with new recruits, underclassmen stepping into bigger roles, or bringing in transfers, Kiffin had to replace the majority of his starters.

All the roster turnover led to some skepticism from the head coach about a few certain positions on the field. Particularly linebacker, where Kiffin wasn’t totally sure about the second level of his defense heading into the year. But after the first game of the season, a 28-10 win over Troy, he feels a lot better about the linebacking corps.

“Yeah, they did really well,” Kiffin claimed following the win. He then proceeded to compare how the linebacker group’s performance was like that of a really effective quarterback.

“And so, you know, probably the equivalent of if we were sitting up here and the quarterback was 80% completion. Between the two of them, four touchdowns, no picks or something like that.” Two of them, meaning Khari Coleman and Troy Brown, two transfer LBs that made their mark in Week 1 for the Rebels.

“So that was the concern over on defense. They did really well. Now, we’re gonna have bigger challenges, obviously. And, you know, some more space games. That was not a space game, you know. They played in tight a lot, so we’re still going to have bigger challenges. But, with that, they did great. And actually, you know, the defensive players of the game were the two new linebackers (Coleman and Brown). So it was actually interesting.”

Lane Kiffin then reflected on how all four of his Player of the Game recipients across the three phases were all newcomers.

“I didn’t realize until I was reading them off to the players and Quinshon Judkins was offensive [player of the week] and the punter was special teams [player of the week]. So our four players of the game were all brand new this year. But I also tell the offense we should never ever have a player of the game be a punter. So, you know, that’s not a good thing.”

A star punter normally means a bad offense. So Kiffin’s point is valid there. Also very interesting that brand new Rebels made their mark in every aspect of the game for Ole Miss. An encouraging development given how much Ole Miss needs its new players to come through.