Ole Miss Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin does not want his team to sleep on the Kentucky Wildcats.
This is the SEC opener for No. 20 Ole Miss, and even though Kentucky looked a bit dubious in its 24-16 win over Toledo in Week 1, this is a game the Rebels can lose if they aren’t careful.
Perhaps nobody knows that better than Kiffin. Last season, Kentucky lost to South Carolina, 31-6, a few weeks before going into Oxford and beating Ole Miss, 20-17.
At the time, the Wildcats were unranked, while the Rebels were ranked No. 6 in the country.
“Well I told our guys you can’t base anybody, especially Kentucky, off of what a game before whatever was,” Kiffin said Wednesday on an SEC teleconference call, according to Thomas Goldkamp of On3. “They’ve had games before that look like that, and then they come out and beat us last year. It was, what, a couple weeks after that South Carolina game up there.”
Lane Kiffin worried about Kentucky QB Zach Calzada
Last season, the Wildcats had Brock Vandagriff at quarterback against Ole Miss, and he completed 18 of 28 passes for 243 yards and a touchdown. The Rebels rolled out with Jaxson Dart, now an exciting rookie with the New York Giants.
In this year’s matchup, Austin Simmons is the gunslinger for Ole Miss. He threw for 341 yards and three touchdowns (two interceptions) against Georgia State.
Kentucky, on the other hand, comes into this game with veteran Zach Calzada running the show. A graduate senior, Calzada has had a long career that has seen him play for Texas A&M, Auburn and Incarnate Word.
He has nearly 9,000 passing yards to his name over his career to go along with over 70 touchdowns.
Per Kiffin, that makes Calzada very dangerous for Ole Miss.
“[He’s] a quarterback that’s thrown for like 9,000 yards, whatever, in his 10th year of playing,” Kiffin explained in a way only he can. “So it’s a guy who’s won a lot of games, played a lot, throws really well. It’s like college football career, like they’ve got Joe Flacco now or something.”
Ole Miss can’t afford to take Kentucky lightly
The Rebels are certainly the favorites heading into this one, even while going on the road, but this is a game that can quickly turn on them if they don’t take Kentucky seriously.
Sure, the Wildcats didn’t look good in Week 1, but Mark Stoops has put together good teams in the past that have picked up big-time wins.
Whatever happened last weekend, or last year for that matter, can’t impact how Ole Miss goes about its business in Week 2.
That’s Kiffin’s message.
“You can’t bet on because they struggled last week in the passing game, that it’s going to be a struggle this week,” he explained.
