One of Alabama’s most anticipated games of the season arrives Saturday when No. 12 Ole Miss brings its top-ranked offense into Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Second-year Rebels coach Lane Kiffin got a head start last week talking about Alabama during Ole Miss’ open week, and continued Monday during his weekly news conference in Oxford.
Here is what Kiffin said:
-- Kiffin called Alabama “a great team, as we all know” and said he “does not see any holes in this team.” He then referred back to his comments last week about Alabama using loosened transfer portal rules as a form of “free agency” in adding Jameson Williams and Henry To’o To’o. “If they did have [holes] at receiver and linebacker, they filled them.”
-- Kiffin said it will be “challenging” to play in front of a crowd, which he noted they haven’t done in two years because of COVID-19. Ole Miss’ only game away from Oxford this season was in a neutral site in Atlanta.
-- “We’ll have our hands full. That’s why we’re a huge underdog for a reason,” Kiffin said. The Rebels opened 20-point or 17.5-point underdogs late last week depending on the sports book, although most betting lines are now around 14.5 or 15 points.
-- Kiffin on Alabama compared to last season: “I think they’re even better. I said last year was a great team, maybe his best team ever, and I think people thought maybe I was just saying that leading up to the game. But then you look and they run the table and not really close games. I think somebody said, in the last two years, only Florida and Ole Miss have scored over 24 points against them. I think they’re better on defense with the Tennessee linebacker added in. [Will Anderson] is now older and as good as any rusher in the country. We’ll have our hands full.”
-- Asked about Ole Miss’ wins over Alabama in 2014 and 2015, Kiffin said those games “have nothing to do with this” and the coaches and players are different. “Those are two really big wins by Ole Miss. Anytime you go play a No. 1 team, especially there, you’re going to have to prepare really well, you’re going to have to play really well, you’re going to have to get some breaks to go your way to get those types of upsets, which is why they rarely happen.”
-- Kiffin said he does not think the bye week helped with injury issues but he hopes all his players are ready.
-- Asked about Alabama’s “staying power” over 15 years, Kiffin began his answer with “Nick Saban,” adding, “Alabama’s been around a long time. They haven’t won like this for a long time -- or run big for a long time. It’s not like it’s just the school. It’s one person. He’s been able to maintain it through tons of different players, tons of different coaches -- more coaching turnover than I bet anybody’s ever had. And so it’s about the way that he works and probably more important than anything, the way he recruits. They got great players. Last year we played them here and they had six first-rounders. We had two draft picks [total]. He’s dominated in recruiting, and now with free agency, he gets to add onto that. He said it himself when first asked about free agency, it was going to make the rich richer, and he was right.”
-- Kiffin said his players need to stay poised in Bryant-Denny Stadium and not make mistakes because of the “energy level” in the stadium. He said that could be more of an issue than crowd noise affecting snap counts, etc.
-- Kiffin on Bryce Young: “He’s got great weapons. He gets out of trouble. He’s been very accurate, short to midfield. You can see last week that he had numbers that are hard to do on air when you’re going against nobody. He’s picked up really well. Again, there’s another coaching change [at offensive coordinator] that they’ve picked up through. That’s why they’re the No. 1 team in the country.”
-- Asked about Saban’s “rat poison” line and if Kiffin heard it during his time at Alabama, Kiffin said it is new and “somebody must have given it to him after I left. So I just think it’s really good, especially the way he explained it. ‘It’s like drinking rat poison.’ It’s pretty good. I would say [Dr.] Lonny [Rosen] or Dr. [Kevin] Elko must have given him that one. It’s pretty good.”
-- Asked about Matt Corral playing on the road, Kiffin said “hopefully it helps a lot, but he’s really not done this with us. He did the year before [in 2019]. This is a new set of challenges too. All the rat poison around his success so far. Talking about Heisman Trophies, which is ridiculous at this stage of the year. Like I told the players, there’s only one ranking that ever matters -- that’s your final ranking. All the other stuff means nothing.”
-- More Kiffin on Corral: “Being in the top for some Heisman media talk now means nothing. It only matters if you win the thing.” But Kiffin did acknowledge there is a benefit in recruiting. “Nationally everybody knows who Matt is. Everybody has watched us. I feel like they know our team more than probably in a long time here. ... But that can die really quick if you don’t keep playing well.”
-- Kiffin said Saban is a “great coach” who he knows spent time in the offseason addressing the Alabama defense’s issues from last year’s game. “We already heard he spent time in the offseason, that they worked a lot of drop-eight against us. So we’re practicing expecting to see that.”
-- Kiffin says he “saw a stat on TV” that the only teams who have beaten Alabama had zero interceptions.
-- Kiffin said playing well against a No. 1 team, even without a win, can benefit recruiting. “So recruits see, ‘OK, hey, we go there, we’re close to playing with the No. 1 team, so maybe myself and a couple kids can be the difference taking us there,’” Kiffin said. Notably, Kiffin follows only three Instagram accounts: Ole Miss, Corral and 2023 top overall prospect Arch Manning, who is also being recruited by Alabama and expected to attend Saturday’s game.
-- Kiffin said defenses will give Ole Miss a “completely different game plan” than what they have shown previously because “we’re so different” as an offense.
Mike Rodak is an Alabama beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mikerodak.
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