‘His ego’s out of control’: Juice’s NIL deal and other Lane Kiffin takeaways from a light-hearted Reb Talk
The Grove Collective, Ole Miss’ NIL arm, “signed” Juice Kiffin, the dog of Lane, the third-year Rebel head football, earlier this week.
As a result, Lane Kiffin said Juice is getting a little too big for his collar.
“I’m just telling you, you guys think it’s all cool and everything, this dog listens to nothing anymore,” Kiffin joked, in Thursday’s edition of Reb Talk, hosted by David Kellum, the voice of Ole Miss football.
“Like, his ego’s out of control. He comes home, he’s terrible. He’s like the child that gets too much too early. You can’t keep them grounded. He’s a disaster now. You come to find out he’s been in the Grove for seven hours partying with everybody all day and comes home and doesn’t want to have a confined lifestyle.”
The contract, which the Grove Collective shared on Twitter, stipulates compensation for Juice in the form of gift cards to Hollywood Feed in Oxford. In exchange, Juice grants his name, image and likeness to the Grove Collective.
GC announced its relaunch, under new leadership, last Friday.
But in an effort to keep the Juice deal — signed in advance of Ole Miss’ thrilling 22-10 win over Kentucky — on the up-and-up, the Grove Collective noted the deal is “only for the purpose of showing that Juice is much cooler than all other SEC mascots.”
Ole Miss, now ranked as a consensus Top 10 team, next travels to Vanderbilt on Saturday. Kickoff is set for 3 p.m. CT on SEC Network.
“I think we’re on our way to doing that, and I think we see some players that have come from some other places that did things different ways buying in,” Kiffin, striking a more back-to-business tone, said of the challenge of taking a roster overhauled with transfers and turning it into a cohesive unit.
Ole Miss is 5-0 (1-0 SEC) overall, while Vanderbilt is 3-2 (0-1).
Kiffin added, “I’ve said all along, if they would all do that and come together, could be a really special team, ‘cause they were put together so late. Like an NBA team that in free agency signs guys late and signs a veteran here and there. Those teams, once they come together, are the really good ones at the end of the year. Now they’ve worked together. This team has a chance to do that. We’ve had to retrain a lot of them.”
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Here’s a bit more of what Kiffin had to say Thursday.
On the win over Kentucky: Obviously we want to do things better than we’ve done them. So, we’re very glad we won, but we really should have taken care of things earlier. Had the lead and a chance to go up by two scores and screwed up a couple of times. The good part is we still survived and won. We need to learn from those situations (and) get better at them.
Like I told the players, I was mad that we didn’t do things better; got so close and left it up to one play like that. If they had done what we wanted them to do, we would have won by a couple of scores and we would have never had the press-box scene of all the coaches hugging and everything. The crowd wouldn’t have been so excited and had all these memorable moments of, ‘Man, the last play was so amazing! It was so great.’ That would have never happened.
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On the sold-out crowd and general atmosphere for Kentucky, as well as getting back up (players, coaches and fans) for Auburn: We would rather have it go the other way, but the fact that (Kentucky was so close) kept a lot of people watching. The way the game ended and stuff was really cool for the recruits there and the recruits watching. It was a pretty cool memory that everybody will have. Now we need to go take care of business this week and come back home to another sold-out crowd at the same time next week.
Don’t listen to the rat poison. Stay humble. Go to work. Like we tell our players, when you play a game and you do what you’re supposed to, you do it again. Like we always say, one of the things about playing really well, or, as a quarterback, having a good game is, OK, now you’ve show us you can. There’s no reason not to. There’s no reason not to (have a sellout for Auburn), especially when the game’s at the same time (11 a.m. CT). There aren’t excuses about this time and too hot and all that stuff. Just show up and do the same thing. It’ll be cooler, even, temperature-wise.
I feel like reverse psychology worked. Instead of being like earlier in the week when I said about not having people in the stands and stuff, then later in the week I was like, ‘You know, I’m not going to complain about it anymore. It is what it is.’ It’s like reverse psychology. ‘Wait, he’s not complaining about it? Now we’re going to show up.’ So, it worked. They even came early, like, ‘We’ll show him.’
RELATED: Ole Miss NIL: The Grove Collective officially relaunches under new leadership
On the offense appearing to improve every week: That goes by quarter. ‘Cause we usually play like really good quarters and really bad quarters, like the fourth. Actually, statistically, in the first half, we have the largest margin of score in the country over people. We’ve lost the fourth quarter like 17-10 or something. Part of that is we’ve been way ahead in a few, but some other ones, gotta finish better. The good thing is if those things happen and you stay winning, and stay undefeated, you’ve got to work on those and have a chance to be really special.
On particular areas where the offense has fallen short in the fourth quarter: We look at everything. I think we probably need to stay more aggressive as coaches offensively. We’re playing to win. The defense is playing so well. Well, that works until one play goes the wrong way and all of the sudden you’re saying why weren’t we more aggressive there instead of just punting and throwing back. Probably be a little more aggressive in those four-minute situations. And that’s cost us before, too. Auburn two years ago we didn’t make the first down, punted it back and they beat us.
On avoiding a letdown at Vanderbilt: We do what other people do and show ‘em other games where Georgia last week (against Missouri) and stuff struggled on the road in games they’re supposed to win. I think we do a good job of not getting too high or low. Just like last week, we didn’t change practice and start preparing different because it was a Top 10 matchup. Pro mindset — prepare the same every week.
