Ole Miss defeated Georgia 28-10 on Saturday night. Here's what Rebel head coach Lane Kiffin said following the win.
"Just really happy because I know we've been close with games for our fans, you know, for them to be able to enjoy this. And, you know, that's a great Georgia team, won outside of Alabama and won 51 straight games against people since COVID. So just happy for our players to play that way and what ends up kind of being dominant, you know, to win three scores. There's a lot of people doing a lot of things right. And this game started a year ago, you know, when these guys beat us like that. And, you know, we made a decision to go to the portal, got some guys to come back, not go to the draft, and for, really a lot for this game. And a number of those guys said it this week, this is why they came here, it was for this game to play Georgia."
On Jaxson Dart coming back after an early injury: "Yeah, I told him, you know, when losses happen in life, and I had a major one this summer, and you don't know why things happen. You can't figure it out at the time. And, you know, maybe those two losses, the way we screwed those games up, you know, there was a reason, so that they would go through things that have adversity today, which there was major adversity. We'd throw a pick, get them to fourth down, and they score a touchdown. Looks like our quarterback's out, you know. So that's not a real good start, getting the ball first and two possessions in be down 7-0 to Georgia without a quarterback. So really glad how they handled that adversity. Gave them three points the rest of the day. And Austin Simmons did a great job coming in. Like we told him, we're going to run the game plan. We're going to throw with you. We're not going to be one of those back-up quarterbacks where we just hand it off. He did a great job. I didn't know Jackson was going to come back in. And Jackson did some medical things and came back and said, I'm going in. So he went back in."
On the defensive front dominating the Georgia offense: "Yeah, that didn't really happen to me with Georgia in that sense very often. So that's a credit to Coach Golding and the staff. We brought him here, you know, for games like this and he showed up. They showed up.I mean, to be at the end of the game, they're throwing screens to stay away from a rush. It was pretty cool. That's a lot of guys doing things right and showing up. And it was great, again, for the last couple weeks to have Princeley back when we didn't have him in the LSU game."
On if he had these kinds of outcomes in mind when he configured this roster: "Yeah, I don't know that I would have pictured it without Tre Harris, the best receiver in the country today. But guys stepped up. Jaxson made really good throws. Austin, you know, Cayden Lee's winning in man-to-man coverage against great cover people. So, yeah, I can't say I pictured a three-score win, but this is why we put it all together to win this game."
On the atmosphere in the stadium: "You know, it's interesting you say that because I remember in warm-ups in Georgia, and I remember, I even said to Kyle, I'm like ,man, I wish our place was like that in warm-ups. I mean, when we were at Georgia, it was rocking 30 minutes before the game.And today, I felt the exact same way. We were in warm-ups, we were playing videos, the crowd was into it on introductions of guys and stuff. And, look, it's just still whatever, 25, 30 minutes until the game. So it was really cool to have that and great for the players. They feel like it's a big-time game, you know, when the fans are there early like that."