Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin explains icy postgame exchange with Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea
OXFORD − Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin has an explanation for what went down in what appeared to be an icy postgame exchange between him and Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea after the Rebels’ 52-28 win on Saturday.
Lea and Kiffin shared a few words after the game, which included the No. 9 Rebels (6-0, 2-0 SEC) keeping their starting offense on the field up three scores late in the fourth quarter and continuing to throw passes from quarterback Jaxson Dart to receiver Jonathan Mingo with the game well out of hand. Though Dart and Mingo weren’t on the field for the final few plays, the Rebels scored a touchdown on the final drive to extend the score further.
«Sometimes things happen in the heat of the game and you don’t really feel great about it,» Kiffin said Monday. «Even though our players get mad at me, I probably should’ve taken a knee there. And I told him that.»
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Kiffin said he explained to Lea that Mingo needed a yard to break Ole Miss’ single-game receiving record, and the plan was to keep Dart and Mingo on the field for one play, throw a hitch route, let Mingo get the record and then get out of bounds. But the way Vanderbilt covered Mingo on the first four plays of the drive took away that option.
So the Rebels were already inside the red zone by the time Mingo caught his pass to break the record. And from there, Kiffin wanted to reward walk-on running back Matt Jones for his contributions to the team once the Rebels were inside the 5-yard line.
«Matt Jones has been the service team player of the week four weeks in a row,» Kiffin said. «So we moved him up and brought him on the trip. So I kind of got caught up in that. But (Lea) didn’t really like how it felt.»
Contact Nick Suss at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on Twitter @nicksuss.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Lane Kiffin explains postgame exchange with Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea
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