Ole Miss safeties used rock-paper-scissors to decide who will start vs Vanderbilt
In the transfer portal and NIL era of college football, it’s clear that college football coaches across the country have had to give up plenty of power and control over their roster. Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin has never been afraid to do things differently and he recently allowed his defensive coordinator Chris Partridge to take player empowerment to the next level. On Saturday, SEC Network sideline reporter Alyssa Lang revealed that Partridge allows his safeties to play rock, paper, scissors in order to decide who starts each game every Saturday. Check out this nugget of information that Lang shared on the Vanderbilt-Ole Miss broadcast Saturday afternoon.
You can listen to the audio below, but there is also a transcribed version of the audio right below the video clip that Lang posted to Twitter.
“Yeah, guys you talked about how dominant this unit has been for Ole Miss. So far this season, coaches credit the unselfishness of that side of the ball for why they’ve been so successful. In fact, defensive coordinator Chris Partridge told us this week that Tysheem Johnson, Isheem Young, and Ladarius Tennison actually played rock, paper, scissors every single Saturday to figure out who’s going to go out there and start the football game. Head coach Lane Kiffin said, ‘Well, yeah, you have these great safeties. We play so fast on offense, it doesn’t really matter who starts because every single one of those guys is gonna get a ton of plays. So, you have three guys who start in two spots. Well, that’s what you need if you’re going to go 80 plays.’
“So instead of coach, how about you choose and maybe ruffling some feathers, they have the guys do it. But, hey, they’re so unselfish. We’ll see though. In a few minutes who won today’s version of rock, paper, scissors when this defense trots out there,” Lang said on the SEC Network broadcast.
The Ole Miss defense has been very good this season
It’s certainly an interesting way of doing things for the Ole Miss safeties. The Rebels’ defense has been pretty outstanding this year, so maybe that way of doing things could catch on with other teams. Entering Saturday’s contest, Ole Miss ranked in the top 30 of college football teams for a few key statistical categories: points per game allowed (11.8), sacks (16), 4th down conversion percentage (5 of 16), and total yards per game allowed (315.6).
After throttling Vanderbilt 52-28 on Saturday, the Rebels currently sit at 6-0 overall on the season and 2-0 in conference play. They’ll face the Auburn Tigers (3-3 overall) next on Saturday, Oct. 15. Kickoff for that one is slated for noon EST.