Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss football had the perfect opportunity to take down Nick Saban and Alabama in Tuscaloosa on Saturday. The Rebels took a 7-6 lead into halftime, but came out completely flat in the second half.
Despite their struggles in the final 30 minutes, the visiting defense held the Crimson Tide to 225 yards passing and just 2.
9 yards per carry. Alabama scored 24 points in total.Ole Miss was in great position to take down a one-loss program that struggled at USF the week prior. It simply could not get the job done.
Injuries to crucial pieces of the offense, poor play-calling and a few forced throws by quarterback Jaxson Dart added up and ultimately proved costly. Frustrating is a good word for the performance.
There were a lot of different factors in the loss. At the center of them is the head coach.
Kiffin wants to make it very clear that he is to blame. To do so, following the defeat, he posted on social media and asked fans to focus their frustrations at him, not his players.
Sorry to let you guys down. We blew that one! Came to win and didn’t get it done. Put it on me not our players.
— Lane Kiffin in a since-deleted post on X, formerly known as Twitter
When asked about his post, Kiffin explained how difficult it is for his players — and all college athletes — to deal with a loss in the internet era. Ole Miss became the first college football staff to be certified in mental health over the summer and social media has a lot to do with that focus.
And after a loss, Kiffin believes that it is easier to ignore the haters in real life than it is online.
I think nowadays I get very concerned with social media about how much these players get attacked. And I get really concerned, because they’re on these phones all day long and sitting on the bus back (from the game) and all that.
I get very concerned that they start to listen to — I’ll say this; when things for some reason (get said) on social media, people tend to listen to it a lot more, when in reality, all they are is the same things when you’re walking out of a stadium that the fans yell. So when the fans yell it, ‘you suck,’ ‘you ain’t good,’ all those things that they yell, you don’t really pay attention.
But for some reason once it’s on the phone, kids start paying attention to it, people do. So I do get concerned with that, so that’s why I said [what I said in my post], just because I worry about players taking so many hits from when we lose, about all these people that just chime in whenever they want, and it’s easy to criticize. So, I get concerned about that, so I want to make sure that I say, ‘Hey, that’s on me as the head coach to do a better job.’
— Lane Kiffin
Ole Miss is 2-1. It will host LSU in Oxford on Saturday with a chance to right the ship with a statement win over the No. 13-ranked Tigers. Kiffin knows that the blame is on him for last week and hopes that fans will take their frustrations out on him so that his players can keep their heads high and keep focus.
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