Everything Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin said on his call with local media Sunday evening

Sixth-year Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin held his weekly Zoom call with local reporters Sunday evening. 

The Rebels are fresh off a 30-23 win at Kentucky to improve to 2-0 (1-0 SEC) on the young season. Next is SEC rival Arkansas (2-0) Saturday at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN.

Here’s everything Kiffin had to say.

OPENING STATEMENT

KIFFIN: Not much different than what the points made after the game. Thought that was a really good win, especially after last year’s loss against them. They play teams tough over the years and give people problems. Early on, Week 3 last year, I think, was 13-12 Georgia. They’ve got Georgia on the ropes up there. Always coached really well offensively and limit big plays. Last couple of times have been a problem for us. Was really pleased after the slow start of being down 10-0 that we go 30-13 after that. So, pleased overall with that. Obviously a lot of things in the game to work on to get better. For now you play four SEC road games and they’re always hard and difficult. Anytime you can get a win that’s encouraging. I kind of always look at it like there’s four of them and you just try to kind of knock them off and get as many as you can. To get one early is good. Now we play at home for a month here. Excited to come back to our fans.

ON QB AUSTIN SIMMONS

KIFFIN: Winning on the road in the SEC, as you group into that a young quarterback’s first SEC game period, let alone road game, he rushed some things early. Unfortunately you kind of expect is going to happen. It’s why guys got to work through those things and get used to playing. But I thought he rallied and made some really good throws and runs that were very critical in the game. He was able to go back in. They taped it up and he was cleared to go back in. Knew the type of plays we were going to run at that point and went with Trinidad because of that. I would expect [Simmons] will be fine.

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ON THE OFFENSIVE LINE AND RETURN OF DELANO TOWNSEND

KIFFIN: Delano played really well when he went in there. Played 59 snaps and did a really good job working his way back from injury. Hopefully he’ll continue to even get better. That was good. He did a really good job. That was critical. Going in I thought we’d attempt to run the ball being on the road against them. Hopefully being able to play good defense. That’s kind of the recipe. When Austin started slow, really took the air out of the ball. We threw one pass in the whole fourth quarter I think. That doesn’t work just by calling runs — you’ve got to execute them. I thought the guys did a really good job. There were some times in that fourth quarter where the guys executed really well. Really two holding penalties away from even much bigger [production]. Touchdown called back and then the long run down to the five called back.

ON ANOTHER TOUGH GAME AGAINST KENTUCKY

KIFFIN: There were a lot of similar feelings in that game, just from the standpoint of the score. We have it and we’re up a score but have a chance to extend it to two. Last year in the game didn’t do that. Really the same thing in the LSU game — had the ball ahead and could have put it away and didn’t and allowed them to go score just like Kentucky. That was really good for that to happen. All three phases did something there. The defense stopped them twice there and the offense had the long drive and got the field goal to put it two scores and the special teams made the kick. That was really good. It’s really good early-season adversity to have and be down 10-0 on the road and come back and win was really great. Actually thinking back to our first win here, we were down two scores at Kentucky and also came back and won. Little bit of that came back, too.