Lane Kiffin Discusses Performance in Blowout Win, Quarterback Plans vs. Tulsa
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OXFORD, Miss. -- Lane Kiffin still isn't ready to verbally name a starting quarterback for the Ole Miss Rebels entering Week 4, but he has positive feelings about how his team performed on Saturday after watching the film.
Ole Miss blew past the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 42-0 on Saturday afternoon behind a dominant rushing attack, and Kiffin gave his thoughts on the game in media availability on Monday.
"I thought our players played really well in all three phases of the game," Kiffin said. "Put a pretty good recipe to win together. Basically make them go three-and-out or four-and-out every series and run the ball for over 300 yards on 60-something carries, you're going to win a lot of games.
"We've got a lot of work to do with better opponents coming up. Starts with the No. 1 pass offense in the country coming up."
While Ole Miss' next opponent, the Tulsa Golden Hurricane, may have its passing game down, Kiffin is sticking with his same plan at quarterback entering Week 4: namely, not naming a firm starter. Jaxson Dart played three quarters of Saturday's game at quarterback, efficiently running the offense outside of an interception late in the first half. He finished with 207 through the air and 40 on the ground in the win. Luke Altmyer entered the game in the fourth quarter when the Rebels already held a 42-0 lead.
"He responded really well," Kiffin said of Dart. "He didn't turn the ball over outside of that play. It was a really good job managing the game outside of that play. This was a game where we were playing great defense and running the ball really well, so the last thing we wanted to do was take risks at the quarterback position.
"I think he definitely learned from it. You don't like bad things to happen, but if you can win and still learn from them, it's better to happen then than a one-score game you lose."
While planning to play multiple quarterbacks isn't ideal, Kiffin still doesn't seem to be in a rush to change that moving forward.
"It works with what we're doing," Kiffin said. "I would have liked the opportunity to throw more with Luke, but having empathy for what's going on in that game and the other sideline, I didn't feel like it was right."
Ole Miss is once again a large favorite this weekend against Tulsa as the newly-christened No. 16 team in the country, but its head coach believes that Saturday will present its own set of challenges.
"You've got to understand rat poison," Kiffin said. "It comes when you play really well. Our running backs and defense are hearing how great they are. We missed a lot of holes in the running game with a lot of plays left out there. These guys have to learn that. It doesn't matter what you did the week before."
The Rebels and Golden Hurricane are set to kick off at 3 p.m. CT on Saturday on SEC Network.
You can follow John Macon on Twitter at @JMakeGillespie.
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