Highlights from Lane Kiffin's Tuesday Media Tour
Lane Kiffin made the media rounds on Tuesday, jumping from AP podcasts to ESPN with Scott Van Pelt to SEC Network with Laura Rutledge.
Mid-quarantine, remote from his backyard pool, Kiffin talked the new Ole Miss gig, the upcoming NFL Draft, a lack of spring football and much more. Here are some of the highlights from Tuesday.
Are first-year head coaches at a disadvantage?
The COVID-19 pandemic put an end to not just the NCAA basketball tournament and college baseball, but also to all spring football games and practices. For staffs like that at Ole Miss with much change between the 2019 and 2020 seasons, that lack of practices are likely to have a massive impact come August.
“You want to stay positive but it’s obviously a disadvantage for first-year staffs around the country,” Kiffin said on SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt. “You don’t know your players. You don’t have spring ball to get to know them and know what you need to add with transfers and those things you get most of the year. We’re doing the best we can, having position meetings with them, Zoom meetings, motivational speakers and still trying to get to know them.”
Kiffin doesn't even know who his quarterback is going to be come the start of fall camp. He's never seen his current players live – relying just on what he's seen on film to this point, and all that film coming in what will be a completely different system to what the Rebels will implement this coming year.
Programs with tremendous levels of continuity, with either entrenched head coaches like Alabama, Oklahoma and Clemson or returning quarterbacks like Clemson, Ohio State and Texas, are going to be at a massive advantage. Ole Miss simply has a lot of work to do to catch up, and they're acknowledging that.
Kiffin compares of Tua Tagovailoa to one Hall of Fame quarterback
Joe Burrow is almost certainly going to be the No. 1 pick in Thursday's NFL Draft. But the second quarterback off the board is likely to be the Crimson Tide signal caller who Kiffin recruited himself. When Kiffin flew out to Hawaii to see Tua Tagovailoa for the first time, his first thought was Steve Young.
“When I went out to Hawaii to watch him in spring recruiting, I was just blown away. He was so accurate with the ball," Kiffin told Laura Rutledge. "He didn’t miss anything, especially deep-ball accuracy. When I came back, I said, ‘This guy reminds me of Steve Young.’ Similar size. Similar movement around the pocket. Very smooth thrower. Someone is going to get a great player (in the draft).”
'Knoxford' makes his ESPN debut via cannonball
Lane Kiffin's only son, Monte Knox Kiffin, draws his name from two obvious sources. Monte is Lane's father. Knox is an abbreviated Knoxville, where Kiffin spent just one season as the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers before jumping back to Southern Cal.
Well, Knox made his television debut on Tuesday with Laura Rutledge, taking a leap on live TV into the pool. At the same time, he was introducing the public to a new, bizarre SEC college town mashup nickname: 'Knoxford.'
Kiffin praises Ohio State products Young, Okudah ahead of NFL Draft
There's a good chance two of the first three players taken in Thursday's NFL Draft are Ohio State products. Lane Kiffin has coached directly against edge rusher Chase Young and corner Jeff Okudah when his FAU Owls took on Ohio State in the non-conference schedule last year. Needless to say, he was impressed.
“It's a way different type of big when you’re on the field with (Chase Young). I had seen him on film, great player and everything," Kiffin said in an interview with Scott Van Pelt. "Then all of a sudden it’s the first quarter and he’s running by. This guy is the Predator out there. That’s what he looks like. No one can touch this guy. He’s just destroying everything.”
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