What Lane Kiffin told local media at SEC Media Days

Prior to taking the main podium inside the College Football Hall of Fame Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin met with the local media to field questions kicking off his Southeastern Conference Media Days experience on Monday.

Here is everything Kiffin said during the scrum.

QUESTION: Do you try and keep a consistent message with Jaxson Dart gone and Austin Simmons in or do you change things based on Simmons’ skills?

Kiffin: We’re always going to work with our players. I think that we’ve done that for a lot of years and our systems evolve. They move towards the exact players that we have that season.

So we’ll always work to do that, but I think massaging and individual work and used to a coach meeting, I think that’s really great us to be able have all these guys back.

Q: A couple weeks into the revenue sharing, have you started feeling the effects of it in terms of team building or does that take a little longer?

Kiffin: We basically have followed this structure of the cap that was coming that we were told was most likely to be approved. You go back to your retention contract from last year, some contracts in the portal, January and Spring. So we’ve been following that. That’s what we were told.

Q: Noticed any changes on the high school side of recruiting due to rev share starting?

Kiffin: I really haven’t noticed one as far as the numbers that have been floated out there. I can’t speak for anyone else but always just have got to have a structure. It’s not just in the way that it used to be. You just got to sign the best players.

You got to look at your roster and where can you put your money as far as not just the positions. We put a lot of work into that. We got told this was coming and that this was going to get passed. So we just go and try to operate that way.

Q: How is the chemistry of the team?

Kiffin: I think it’s good. I think the players before set a really good standard. Taught the young players really well these guys dud a really good job with the guys coming in.

I think the staff being back as I mentioned really helps out.

Q: What traits are you looking for in replacements for Kelvin Bolden and other staff departures and is there a timeline?

Kiffin: There’s not a timeline. We just try to find the best people. Unlike position coaches as far as an exact role like your DB coach and stuff, personnel and recruiting roles aren’t exact. Those are a lot more, as you meet people and just finding people that fit, not necessarily, the exact skillset.

Q: How confident are you in the run game this season and what changes were made in the offseason

Kiffin: We’ll see. We have practice coming up, so I don’t know that. We got some good lineman. Running back room is very different than a year ago. Hopefully it’s better. That was probably our one issue as our team as a whole that prevented us from going as far as we wanted to.

Q: Austin seems like a pretty steady guy but is there anything you do to make sure he doesn’t try to do too much to replace Jaxson?

Kiffin: I think any time, whether at college or NFL, there’s a new player at the position, especially quarterback, you have to be careful that he doesn’t think he has to be ‘HIM.’ Jaxson’s a great leader but unique in how he did that with the relationships. So Austin, he’s got to be himself and just really work on his game and his development.

Q: Have you seen anything different in how Simmons attacked the offseason entering the first year as the starter?

Kiffin: I think anytime that once you got a chance to be the starter and you feel that, you change a little bit. He’s done a great job. He’s really played well and worked on a lot of different stuff

Q: What has been the response and interest in for potential candidates to replace those roles in the coaching staff.

Kiffin: I think that people want to work in our program and those guys moving on shows that people want to hire from our program. So when that happens we get a lot of interest from people because they realize that it’s a program where a lot of people getting hired off them.

Q: Would you consider hiring Nick Saban for a position if he wanted to get out of retirement?

Kiffin: I don’t think he’s done. He’ll be back, whether it’s college or NFL.

Q: With the rosters that we see nowadays is your approach to team building and gelling everyone change?

Kiffin: Yeah, we kind of have to start every year like it’s new, as far as teaching things, and speakers and cultures and everything because there is so much turnovers. Which is unfortunate for college football but it is what it is. So it’s where we’re at with the system that we have to continue that way.

We have a lot of players returning. It’s college.