Ole Miss Football

Texas Tech responded to Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin's allegations that Red Raiders linebacker Dimitri Moore used a racial slur and spit on a Rebels player during Wednesday's Texas Bowl.

Brett McMurphy of Action Network shared full statements from head coach Joey McGuire and Moore:

McGuire notably said, "We are disappointed an opposing coach decided to insinuate serious allegations that are false and irresponsible," while Moore said, "I can't state strongly enough that these accusations are false."

Kiffin made the allegations when speaking to reporters after the loss.

He was discussing a scuffle that occurred during the fourth quarter and resulted in Ole Miss wide receiver Jordan Watkins, who is Black and wears No. 11, being issued a personal foul penalty.

Kiffin explained Moore, who is also Black and wears No. 11 for Texas Tech, should have been flagged:

"They announce our 11, which is Jordan Watkins, who wasn't in the fight. It was their 11 that was fighting 71 [Ole Miss lineman Jayden Williams], and everybody knew because their own coaches were yelling at the guy.

"There was a racial slur involved; that's not the point of what we're talking about, [it's] about the spitting part. I brought our own 71 up to the officials, right or wrong, you see him crying? He's not crying, not because he got spit on, it's because something was said."

Kiffin said he spoke about the incident with the Texas Tech head coach.

"I talked to their head coach afterwards," Kiffin said. "He was like: 'Crazy officiating out there.' I go: 'Yeah, that was really bad on that one that your guy spit and our guy got the penalty.' He was like: 'Yeah, I know.'"

The Red Raiders won 42-25.

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin offered his endorsement of Jackson State's Deion Sanders with Auburn looking to replace the recently fired Bryan Harsin.

Kiffin told reporters Wednesday he believes Sanders would "do great" with the Tigers:

I think that's a great name and they should hire him. Great recruiter, great name. This is a different world we're in now. Recruiting has always been important, but now you have the portal, so you have kids...you can change a roster faster than you ever could before, and you can lose a roster faster than you ever could before. The ability to hire, like Deion, and have that name right away and portal people wanting to come play for him right away, you can flip a roster where before, realistically, it would take two to three years to truly turn a roster around. You can do it immediately.

It seems inevitable Sanders will leave Jackson State to take a Power Five job. He told 60 Minutes' Jon Wertheim in October he'd at least listen if the opportunity presented itself:

The Athletic's Bruce Feldman listed Sanders as a candidate to succeed Harsin but added, "We’ve heard mixed reactions on whether Auburn brass would be comfortable with Sanders taking over."

The Hall of Fame cornerback has answered his skeptics at every step.

He has attracted a higher level of talent to JSU than the program typically gets. In the case of 5-star cornerback and No. 1 overall recruit Travis Hunter, he took his alma mater, Florida State, head on.

Sanders is delivering on the field as well. Jackson State went 4-3 in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season before it won 11 games in 2021. It sits at 8-0 in 2022.

As Kiffin laid out, Sanders has the personality and charisma to go toe-to-toe with Alabama's Nick Saban, Georgia's Kirby Smart, Clemson's Dabo Swinney and the rest of the competition on the recruiting trail.

And while talent accumulation isn't a guarantee of success—just look at Texas A&M—it goes a long way toward winning in the SEC.

Hiring a coach from an FCS program would obviously present a level of risk for Auburn. Sanders, meanwhile, may prefer his first Power Five gig be one with a better track record of stability.

But this is a partnership the sides should consider, even if the discussions come to nothing.

Recruit ratings via 247Sports' composite list.

In a story straight out of a potential college comedy movie, Ole Miss found itself a new punter at a party inside a fraternity house.

Head coach Lane Kiffin spoke to reporters about the team's new punter, Charlie Pollock:

"I don't know a whole lot about him," he said. "I think he was down at the frat house, like at a keg party or something, where they got him from. So, we have condition work to do with my guy. But we just said, 'Hey, someone go find a punter around campus,' so we found one that actually used to punt in Division I. So, you never know."

Pollock is listed at 6'1" and 250 pounds on Ole Miss' official website.

He was the No. 13 overall punter in the 2020 recruiting class, per the 247Sports composite rankings, and went to Nevada. However, he announced he was entering the transfer portal in December 2020.

Now he might just be punting in marquee SEC games because he was at the right place at the right time when he was partying.

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin said he's open to the program setting up a future game against FCS opponent Jackson State, which is coached by NFL legend Deion Sanders.

"It's been great to see Deion's success, Coach Sanders' success and how well he's doing," Kiffin told reporters Monday at SEC media days. "I don't know future plans on that, but that would be exciting."

Sanders took over the Jackson State program in 2020, and he's helped the squad turn a corner. The Tigers have compiled a 15-5 record across his first two seasons, highlighted by winning the SWAC Championship Game last season.

While that success combined with Sanders' high-profile status makes Jackson State an intriguing schedule option for Power Five teams—the matchup would create far more interest than a usual buy game—the former cornerback isn't always a fan.

In September, Sanders told Andscape's Jean-Jacques Taylor that "all money ain't good money."

"Normally you just get paid to get beat. Your program makes a little more money than they normally would and you go get your butt kicked," he said. "I don't believe in that. I don't know how that helps anybody."

Jackson State athletic director Ashley Robinson agreed with Sanders, saying the program would turn down most Power Five offers in favor of games against FBS opponents where the Tigers could be more competitive.

Robinson confirmed the exception would be in-state opponents like Ole Miss or Southern Miss.

"Those games would be historic," Robinson told Taylor. "Those are the only Power Five games we'll be looking at."

So a showdown between Kiffin's Rebels and Sanders' Tigers could be possible in the coming years. A season-opening matchup would be particularly attractive if the sides eventually come to terms.

For now, the focus is the upcoming campaign. Ole Miss opens the 2022 season Sept. 3 when it hosts Troy at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, while Jackson State will play Florida A&M at Hard Rock Stadium for its opener Sept. 4.

Former Tennessee head football coach Lane Kiffin fired back at a Twitter troll after the Volunteers were eliminated from the college baseball super regionals by Notre Dame on Sunday.

Kiffin, who now leads the Ole Miss football program, took advantage of the Rebels earning their ticket to Omaha for the College World Series to take a shot at the Vols:

UT was the top-ranked team in the NCAA men's college baseball tournament after posting a 49-7 record during the regular season, but it couldn't overcome the unseeded Fighting Irish, who won the deciding Game 3 by a 7-3 score.

It presented an opportunity for Kiffin to respond to the message he'd received a day earlier, and he didn't pass it up.

The outspoken coach spent just one year with the Vols in 2009, leading the team to a 7-6 record, before leaving to accept the USC job after Pete Carroll left for the NFL's Seattle Seahawks.

Kiffin returned to UT's Neyland Stadium in October for the first time as a head coach since his departure. He guided the Rebels to a 31-26 win, and Vols fans responded by throwing trash on the opponent's sideline after a disputed call late in the fourth quarter.

"They're just throwing stuff. I just said put your helmets on and let's play," Kiffin said after the game. "They're passionate fans. People came to see a show and it didn't end the way they wanted it to. It is what it is."

Despite downplaying the incident in the immediate aftermath, it clearly stuck in his mind because he brought it back up Friday, which sparked the interaction:

Unfortunately, the Rebels and Volunteers aren't scheduled to face off during the upcoming football season, so the trash talk between Kiffin and Tennessee fans will have to remain on social media.

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin believes money is far more important than any other factor when it comes to recruiting during the age of name, image and likeness rights in college football.

Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated asked Kiffin how much money is factoring into recruiting and shared the coach's response:

"You take a 17-year-old who, a lot of them, don't come from money and family doesn't come from money … If any person tells you that their NIL is not the No. 1 thing … Take 100 of them and ask about the No. 1 thing that's going to make the decision … It's not the size of the stadium, not the head coach, not the campus or the conference, the No. 1 thing will be money.

"And how would you blame them? A professional player already has money, and they usually follow the money [in free agency]. So when you don't have it and are three or four years away from getting money in the NFL, you take what is guaranteed. How can you blame them when a lot of them never make it to the NFL? How do you not take it?"

Kiffin also stressed he believes players should be paid and that "they shouldn't be [paid] all equal. That's not what happens in the real world. Why does their best player get paid the same as their worst player? That's not real life."

He also suggested some type of salary cap may be the long-term answer, pointing to already existing similarities with professional sports.

"How are we not a professional sport?," he said. "What is the difference? [Players] are making money. They can opt into free agency. We're a professional sport, and they are professional players. Contracted employees without contracts."

He also posited star players using their individual power in the NIL era isn't far away:

"Why did Bryce Young not go into the portal? If you are advising Bryce Young, why do you not go into the portal and walk into Nick Saban's office and say, 'Hey, I want to be here, but I've got to protect myself so I'm going to go into the portal. And I want to come back as long as it's matched with what I get out there.' The kid would make 10 times what he would have made. How's that not going to happen all the time? It should. It will."

That he mentioned Young and Saban is notable because the Alabama head coach has been at the center of NIL-based headlines of late.

Saban told reporters: "A&M bought every player on their team. Made a deal for name, image and likeness. We didn't buy one player. But I don't know if we're going to be able to sustain that in the future because more and more people are doing it."

That inspired a passionate response from Texas A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher, who said Saban's comments were "despicable" and "personal."

He also called the coaching legend a "narcissist" and suggested reporters should dig into Saban's past.          

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey issued public reprimands for both coaches, and Saban apologized for singling out Texas A&M and Jackson State in his comments.

The NCAA released guidelines earlier this month that said booster-led collectives cannot be involved in recruiting even during the new era of college football. While the guidelines left open the possibility of retroactive punishments for schools, that doesn't seem particularly likely given the potential for antitrust lawsuits.      

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin thought Jimbo Fisher left some money on the table with his press conference addressing comments Nick Saban had made about Texas A&M paying for recruits.

In a viral moment from Thursday, Fisher told reporters that "some people think they’re God" and implied Saban might have some skeletons in his closet:

Kiffin apparently had the same reaction as everyone else watching the scene unfold.

"This can’t really be happening...is this real life?" he said of what he was thinking to The Athletic's Bruce Feldman. "I still haven’t moved from my seat. That should've been on pay-per-view."

The press conference certainly felt like something that belonged in professional wrestling. One coach needling another in public is nothing new, but this went well beyond that.

Fisher and his staff put together the No. 1 recruiting class in 247Sports' composite rankings for 2022. The group includes eight 5-star players and 19 4-star players, and it's the single best class ever.

In February, Fisher took exception to the notion the name, image and likeness money played a role in the Aggies attracting so much talent:

That didn't stop Saban on Wednesday from saying "A&M bought every player on their team" and adding Alabama "didn't buy one player."

Once Texas A&M announced Fisher was holding an impromptu press conference, fans knew things were going to take an even more dramatic turn.

Perhaps Saban will offer a rebuttal in short order. Otherwise, it may not be until July 19 at the SEC media days until the coaching legend publicly addresses Fisher's remarks.

The next on-field encounter between the Aggies and Crimson Tide on Oct. 8 can't come soon enough, either.