What Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin said about matchup vs. Oklahoma
The Ole Miss Rebels bring one of football’s most explosive offenses to Norman this weekend. The Sooners will look to match them with one of football’s most dominant defenses.
It’ll be a battle between two top-15 ranked teams at Owen Field on Saturday (11 a.m. ABC), when the No. 13-ranked Sooners host the No. 8-ranked Rebels. The Rebels (6-1, 3-1 SEC) had no issues scoring last weekend against Georgia but struggled to keep the Bulldogs off the scoreboard, dropping their first game of the season, 43-35.
The Rebels will look to bounce back, while the Sooners will look to keep the momentum from last Saturday’s 26-7 win over South Carolina. It’ll be Kiffin calling the plays for the Rebels’ offense against OU head coach Brent Venables, who calls the plays for OU’s defense.
It’s the third all-time meeting between the two programs. Ole Miss beat the Sooners, 26-14, last season in Oxford.
Here’s everything Kiffin said about the Sooners during his Monday press conference:
Kiffin on Ben Arbuckle, John Mateer
Night and day (different from a year ago). Very different. ( Arbuckle’s) done a great job. Presents a lot of problems. Runs the quarterback, plus-one runs, moves them around. They’ve got a background together, which obviously helps, too. This is a really big challenge. They do a great job. They’ve always had this defense. Really got this defense fixed the last couple years, and now their offense fixed. You’ve got a Top 10 team like you’re supposed to have at Oklahoma.
Kiffin on Oklahoma’s defensive depth
They’re coached very well. They’ve had some backups come in and they look similar with how fast they get off the ball. They’ve got really good players that are coached really well. That’s a really good combination in a very aggressive defensive mindset. [Venables] plays kind of like some offenses sometimes. Like, when he has them down, he doesn’t get conservative. He’s going to really try to keep going.
That’s why you see some of these games where it’s just the offensive numbers are so far down because he just never lets up. That’s not necessarily always how defensive coaches call it [but] maybe a little more some offensive coaches do that.
So, I think he’s taken that mindset and really knocks people out.
Kiffin on what Oklahoma does different defensively
One, it’s phenomenal prep — a film study of signals. They do a great job of that. If you study people really well, you have enough confidence as a coach to go after those. That seems what he does and they’ve got a really good beat on the plays that are coming when they’re called and they do a great job of going and taking those away.
Look at the Auburn game. I told Hugh [Freeze] after the game watching it he might want to switch his signals. Like, it looks like they have the plays. The middle safety’s running down to steal slants, which is very abnormal.
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