Lane Kiffin: Injured Ole Miss EDGE Princewill Umanmielen ‘expected back’ for Washington State

Sixth-year Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin didn’t hold his usual, weekly press conference on Monday. 

His No. 4-ranked Rebels (5-0, 3-0 SEC) are on a bye after an unforgettable, and consequential, 24-19 win over LSU. Kiffin updated where things stand with his team on Wednesday while appearing on the SEC Teleconference call.

Here’s everything he had to say. 

OPENING STATEMENT 

KIFFIN: We’ve had two really hard practices, another one tomorrow. Full pads today. The message is we’ve got a lot of things to work on. Don’t listen to the outside noise about 5-0 and the ranking and all that. We’ve got a lot of things to work on. They’ve responded well. Very physical practices. We didn’t really need the bye, I didn’t feel like. We were in a good rhythm, but it is what it is. 

But I explained to them, the bye isn’t the bye week. That’s the weekend. You don’t play on the weekend. We’ve got to grind and really work. We’ve spent a lot of time not just on Washington State but Georgia. It’s been good.

ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE OLE MISS DEFENSE 

KIFFIN: Last year we played great defense. One of the top rush defenses in the last 10 years of college football. We’ve not played that way this year, and we’ve got a ton of new players. We lost a lot of NFL players and really good players. So, we’ve been up-and-down on defense this year, and we’ve got to keep improving because we’re going to have some really challenging games. But Pete Golding’s done a wonderful job. We’ve come a long ways from where we were defensively before he got here.

ON JAYLON BRAXTON AND PRINCEWILL UMANMIELEN

KIFFIN: It was good for Jaylon to finally get back and play some plays. We look to expand that role as he returns to full play. Princewill was unfortunately hurt in that game, which would have been good to have him. They were pretty pass-happy and not many runs. He’s a great pass-rusher. Kind of ironic, he missed the rest of that game and his brother [Princely, now with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers] missed the whole LSU game the year before. But we look to have him back for Washington State. 

ON OLE MISS’ SCHEDULE FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK

KIFFIN: Their last practice is Thursday morning and then they have off and they come back for Sunday night meetings and practice.

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ON 10 SEC TEAMS RANKED IN THE TOP 25

KIFFIN: That’s just a situation of NIL and portal. In my opinion, I don’t think you’re going to see these loaded SEC … the ‘Bama run, the Georgia run. I don’t think that’s happening again under the current system. You can’t keep that many great players on a roster because they’re not playing and they transfer. Not only do they transfer, some of them go in the conference, so it balances out the conference more. 

Also, if you’re a bottom-conference team one year, you can fix your problems right away through the portal, where before you had high school kids who take a couple of years, so a team might be down for two or three years. That doesn’t happen. 

The SEC is different than any other conference with their middle and bottom teams. No other conference is like it. No other conference plays as many hard places to play. It’s always been that way, and then you add Oklahoma and Texas to that. Two of the Top 10 teams in America. 

These are hard places to play, and now you have improved rosters at the bottom. Think about South Carolina’s next five games. You could take the rest of the country outside the SEC and say, OK, I’m going to play them against these five teams and it might not be as hard. Any five. Take the best five outside of the SEC. I don’t know if that would be as hard as South Carolina’s next five games, and we’re going to play an extra SEC game now next year. 

Yes, it’s totally different than it’s ever been. Hopefully they create a system like basketball and baseball where that’s valued. I don’t think that it is when it comes to playoffs. I’m just talking in general. I’ve been saying this for a while: I don’t think people can see through, just like last year, 10-2 vs. 9-3, and certainly 10-2 vs. 8-4 when you have this type of schedule. You may be a great team and go 8-4, but you can be in these other conferences, play two ranked teams, lose to both, and be 10-2 and get in the playoffs a year ago.

ON THE OLE MISS RUN GAME

KIFFIN: I think it’s improved from a year ago. A lot has to do with the running back [Kewan Lacy], but he’s still young. True sophomore, didn’t play a lot last year. He’s got things to work on in this bye week. We’ve gotten a number of holdings, which is when you hold, but also, sometimes, when the runner bounces too much. We’ve got some things to work on where we can definitely get better in the run game.

ON THE AMOUNT OF FLAGS IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL

KIFFIN: I don’t get to watch a whole lot TV-wise. Cut-ups as a coach you don’t notice that as much because it’s filtered through. There’s an analytic out there, so I’m sure it’d be easy to see if they’re up. But I don’t know that off-hand.