Lane Kiffin praises Austin Simmons for supporting Trinidad Chambliss

OIe Miss QB Austin Simmons has been limited the past three games, and fully out the last two, with an ankle injury. But, while a bit of quarterback controversy has been built around him in that time, Simmons has been nothing but supportive since in his role on the sidelines.

Lane Kiffin commended Simmons in his absence following the 24-19 win over LSU on Saturday. He credited the work he has been doing in his rehab as well as how he has handled the play of QB Trinidad Chambliss in his place with the Rebels.

“Yeah, Austin has been a stud,” Kiffin said postgame. “Battling his way back through injury, being ready to play today. He would have done a great job. If he was fully healthy, he would have went in there.”

“And, you know, says a lot about him, because that’s not easy. It’s not easy,” said Kiffin. “You’ve been waiting to be the starter for a couple years, waiting for Jaxson to leave. And so, really proud of him in how he’s handled that.”

Simmons, Ole Miss’ starter the first two weeks, sprained his ankle in their win over Kentucky on September 6th. He then played a few snaps against Arkansas the following week, where he reaggravated it, with him having not played the last two games in wins over Tulane and then this weekend over LSU.

In his place after being his backup, Chambliss has been very productive during this three-game winning stretch in Oxford. He is 61-105 (64.8%) for 974 yards with five touchdowns and one interception, while also rushing for 245 yards and two more scores. That’s 406.4 total yards of offense on average with the seven touchdowns scored.

“You know, we got a bye week coming up at 5-0 and 3-0, first place in the conference. So, it’s a good problem to have. I don’t have that answer right now, and I don’t need to have it right now,” Kiffin said later of their new question at quarterback going into their upcoming bye. “We have two really good quarterbacks and that’s a really good thing to have because, I think you just see around the country, people usually, when they lose their quarterback, you know, their team changes a lot. And, Austin got hurt and we’re still able to play the way that we’ve played. It’s a really good problem to have.”

While maintaining that a healthy Simmons is still their starter, it remains to be seen how Kiffin plays this at quarterback coming out of the bye week. That said, Simmons sounds as though he has handled this as well as he could while off the field for a time while injured.