Everything Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said to open Washington State week

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin on Monday held his weekly press conference, this time in advance of Washington State. Kiffin broke down the Cougars, as well as updated the health of his team and much, much more.

The Rebels are 5-0 (3-0 SEC) on the season and ranked No. 4 in the latest AP Top 25 poll. Kickoff Saturday is set for 11:45 a.m. CT.

OPENING STATEMENT

KIFFIN: Really exciting game this week. Preparation started last night with our players and a walk-through today. This is a really good challenge for us coming off of a bye to play really well against a team that is 3-2. In their three losses played great defense. I think they’ve given up three, 10 and 13. So, basically nine points a game. You see in college football you’ve got to come play every week. You saw it all around the country Saturday watching games. 

So, really challenged our guys not to listen to the noise out there about where they are in rankings, any of that stuff, because none of that means anything until the final one. Thought guys were really good today. We’re going to continue to push them all week.

I challenge our fans, too, to show up. As fans, rightfully so, we can’t stand when a team comes out flat or doesn’t show up and waits a half to start playing well. That’s what fans expect of coaches and players. So, why wouldn’t we be the same? Last Saturday was electric here in the stadium and before on the Walk [of Champions]. I understand a lot of it’s because they hate LSU, but why not show up like that every week?

This one, early kick, would be awesome for our fans to do that and show up the same way — students, everybody. It’s the biggest game of the year because it’s the only game this week that we have. So, let’s coach, play and cheer the same way.

ON WASHINGTON STATE

KIFFIN: These [coaches] come from South Dakota State. Coach’s been there a long time — as an assistant before being moved up. Kind of took the majority of their staff and roster and moved over to Washington State. 

They throw the ball really well. On defense, they’re sound in what they do and they’ve played some really good games of defense. Now, they had some lopsided games like the Washington game, which got out of control late. Both those games, North Texas and Washington, they had a lot of turnovers in the game and that set up really short fields. 

This is a really big challenge for us. Our first early game like this, so hopefully we play well. We practice early every day. That shouldn’t shock our players.

ON WASHINGTON STATE AHEAD OF GEORGIA AND OKLAHOMA

KIFFIN: Those have nothing to do with this. Everybody has tough matchups in this conference. Said it for a while now, and I think you guys are seeing it: This conference is like the NFL. Everybody can beat everybody and everybody can lose to everybody in this conference. You’re seeing it by what’s going on every week. It’s a battle. It’s just different than every other conference. Just like the NFL, you’ve got to play really well every week.

Our system, different than the NFL. Everything comes down to these wins and losses and getting into these playoffs at that threshold of whatever it is, 10 wins. Got to be ready to play every week and almost survive and advance in a way in this conference. We’ll worry about [Georgia and Oklahoma] later on. This week is a great challenge for us to play these guys and come back after a bye and improve.

ON IF THE EARLY KICK CHANGES PREP AT ALL

KIFFIN: The time shouldn’t be an issue because we’re a morning format team and our guys are up early every day and practice early. We just try to really focus on each day individually and each game and not worry about anything else. 

ON HOW THE OLE MISS COMMUNITY HAS EMBRACED TRINIDAD CHAMBLISS

KIFFIN: Our fan base loves these stories like this. Having a number of players before kind of with kids here, like [Caden] Prieskorn, and how much the community embraces the players here. 

It’s really awesome, as they’re kind of your adopted kids coming in here. The Trinidad thing is a great story for all players at Division ll, Division lll, lower high schools, that feel like they’re not going to get looked at. Just keep preparing and playing really hard. You never know what’s going to happen.

I think it’s funny the flags everywhere. I dropped Knox off at his buddy’s house and they have a big Trinidad flag in the house. Now they’ve got songs about the island and everything. So, it’s really awesome. 

I don’t like to kind of kill the story, but you know he’s not from an island? He’s from Michigan. His dad’s from South Bend, Indiana, and he’s been to one island in his life on a field trip when was little to Mackinac Island, Michigan. So, he’s never even been around blue water, let alone sand and an island. So, he doesn’t come from an island, but it’s a great story. 

In the South there’s a saying: ‘Don’t let the facts and details get in the way of a good story.’ Maybe we’ll just run with this one.

ON THE ENERGY OF THE TEAM OFF A BYE

KIFFIN: It’s been great. Coming back last night and meeting and practicing last night, guys were excited. Sometimes that’s kind of a pain for players Sunday night. They were excited. They’ve got a chance to do some neat things and put themselves in place to do that, but it won’t matter if they don’t keep preparing every day.

ON IF THE BYE WEEK HELPED OLE MISS HEALTH-WISE

KIFFIN: It wasn’t really that relative as far as getting players back. The rest, maybe for some players that were a little bit not 100 percent as good. They looked really fast last night.

ON THE HEALTH OF OLE MISS QB AUSTIN SIMMONS

KIFFIN: He is [closer to getting back on the field]. Continuing to get closer to 100 percent. He’s not there yet. This week for him was good. We’ll see tomorrow. 

RELATED: Ole Miss is still living on island time with Austin Simmons still not ‘100 percent’

ON OLE MISS COACHES RECRUITING OVER THE BYE WEEK

KIFFIN: I think that [LSU] game was really viewed a lot last Saturday. I felt that in different schools that you went in, certainly in New Orleans [Sunday]. Felt that. So, those things are good, and it’s good to be relevant, and it helps in recruiting. I love it most for our fans that previously went through some tough years. It’s great for them.

ON HOW OLE MISS GAME CAPTAINS ARE CHOSEN

KIFFIN: By me. We don’t have permanent captains. A lot of times I just pick the bigger guys because I feel like as they go out there for the coin toss it’s kind of intimidating. Put Cayden Lee out there, they’re like, ‘Man, these guys are little.’ 

I don’t know if that’s old school, but a lot of times I just pick bigger guys.

ON SIMMONS AS A STARTING OPTION

KIFFIN: A lot as far as down the road. He’s not back to 100 percent. We’ll continue to evaluate that and look at everything. We’re in a great place. I mean, we have two great quarterbacks. We have two quarterbacks that are better than a lot of people’s No. 1. It’s awesome to be in this position. 

ON HOW HIS BYE WEEK PERSONALLY WENT

KIFFIN: We went to different recruiting areas and saw some people in that. Happened to be at dinner with Theo [Von] and then he walked us next door and went to a concert for a little bit. It was pretty cool.

Then we got to go to Jaxson [Dart’s] game yesterday [in New Orleans]. Got to go to it and then come right back. That was really neat to see him and to see his parents there. Pretty exciting to see him go out there for the first play in the NFL, even though he started the week before, but on the road. To be there for that, just really, really cool. Almost like a parent moment you feel. 

It’s interesting. I was really, like, yelling at him to slide more than I did as his coach. 

ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE PAC-12

KIFFIN: I think the whole thing is sad — the whole conference alignments, especially that one. There’s so much history in that and USC, UCLA and the conference and the Pac-8, then 10, then 12. Now they’re flying all over the country and teams flying out there on these weird kickoff times. I understand it. All these decisions made by conferences and schools are always about money. I get it. It is what it is. 

I don’t think it’s good outside of the money. It’s bad for the kids and their travel and their school and rivalries and fans, especially that conference, where everybody’s way over there. Just the whole thing’s sad. 

ON THE OLE MISS DEFENSE

KIFFIN: After that Arkansas game they had a hard meeting with coach [Pete] Golding and the players and for a long time on Sunday night. We played better pass defense. I also think Arkansas’s really good on offense. They’d done that to a lot of people. 

I kind of look at the whole thing and not just the stat rankings. We look at the analytics and the metrics. There’s a really good one, I think it’s FPI, where they put the offense, defense, special teams and rank the teams. That really shows. It doesn’t focus on records only; it really focuses on who you played in that and how you played and if it was late in the game and all those things in the analytics and the metrics. So, I look at that instead of just the rankings. 

That would show you, obviously, Arkansas is an elite offense.