Lane Kiffin knows better than to read too much into Kentucky's struggles vs. Toledo

Lane Kiffin has had the Kentucky game circled on his calendar since the Cats upset the No. 6 Rebels last year in Oxford, a loss that likely cost Ole Miss a spot in the College Football Playoffs. Even though Kentucky didn’t exactly look like world beaters in the 24-16 win over Toledo, totaling just 85 passing yards, Kiffin knows better than to read too much into the Cats’ struggles ahead of Saturday’s game at Kroger Field.

“I’ve told our guys, you can’t base anybody, especially Kentucky, off of what a game before or whatever was, because they’ve had games before looking like that, and they come out and beat us last year. It was, what, a couple of weeks after that South Carolina game up there.”

As Kiffin said, three weeks before Kentucky pulled off the upset in Oxford last year, the Cats lost to South Carolina at home 31-6. Kentucky totaled just 44 passing yards and 183 yards total in the embarrassing defeat. Later that month, Brock Vandagriff threw for 243 yards and a touchdown in the 20-17 win over the Rebels, a performance that included Stoops going for it on 4th and 7 on Kentucky’s 20-yard line, an uncharacteristic gamble that paid off with a 63-yard completion to Barion Brown to set up the game-winning touchdown. Afterward, Kiffin said he never could have imagined Stoops calling that play, one reason he’s not banking on Kentucky’s poor passing performance vs. Toledo.

Another reason: Zach Calzada, now in his seventh year of college football. Kiffin has coached against Calzada once, in 2021, when Calzada was Texas A&M’s starting quarterback. No. 15 Ole Miss knocked off the No. 11 Aggies 29-19 that night, thanks in part to two costly interceptions by Calzada in the fourth quarter. Four years of experience later, Kiffin knows not to underestimate the veteran quarterback, joking that Calzada is the Joe Flacco of college football in terms of longevity.

“Also, it’s a quarterback that’s thrown for like, 9,000 yards, you know, or whatever, in his tenth year of playing. So, it’s a guy who’s won a lot of games, played a lot, throws really well. It’s like, [the way] college football is turning, it’s like they’ve got Joe Flacco now or something. So, you can’t bet on, because they struggled last week in the pass game, that’s going to show up this week.”

Ole Miss came into last year’s game untested, with four lopsided wins over non-conference foes; Kiffin may not admit to overlooking Kentucky last year, but he once again reminded reporters on the call of how much his team has prepared for Saturday’s rematch.

“We spent a lot of time this offseason on Kentucky. That was a really hard loss to deal with, especially with the offensive struggles in the game. So yeah, we paid a lot of attention to that film.”

We’ll find out if Calzada lives up to the Joe Flacco moniker Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET (ABC).