Ole Miss unfazed without its coach
OLE MISS 43, LOUISVILLE 24
ATLANTA — From more than 300 miles away, Lane Kiffin liked what he saw.
Matt Corral threw for 381 yards and accounted for two touchdowns, Snoop Conner ran for a pair of scores, and Mississippi romped to a 43-24 victory over Louisville on Monday night even without its head coach.
Despite being fully vaccinated along with everyone in his program, Kiffin tested positive for covid-19 and was not be able to accompany the team to its season-opening game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
Ole Miss did just fine with its quarantined coach watching from Oxford, piling up 569 total yards.
“If they’re going to play like that without me, I’ll just stay here,” Kiffin quipped on a post-game Zoom call from campus. “I’m already here. I don’t have to travel back. I’m already watching Austin Peay film right now.”
Kiffin said he plans to be back on the sideline for Saturday’s game, though he still sounded a bit under the weather.
“It really is amazing what energy does,” he said. “I completely forgot about it when the ball kicked off. I forgot I was sick. But I’m feeling better.”
Corral completed 22 of 32 passes, including a 6-yard touchdown to Dontario Drummond. The Ole Miss quarterback also ran 6 yards for a score, while Drummond finished with 177 yards on nine receptions.
Conner had TD runs of 1 and 11 yards, barreling right over a Louisville defender on the second score. Jerrion Ealy also powered over from the 1 and Caden Costa kicked three field goals.
“Every time we get the ball,” Corral said, “our goal is to score.”
Kiffin didn’t appoint an acting head coach, saying everyone on his staff would play their usual roles in his absence. But much of the attention was on offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, who calls plays for a group that averaged nearly 40 points a game in Kiffin’s first season.
Ole Miss led 26-0 at halftime before a sparse crowd announced at 30,709; the upper deck in the 71,000-seat stadium wasn’t even used.
But the biggest improvement came on the defensive side, where Ole Miss broke out a new scheme mainly using three down linemen, two linebackers and a bunch of defensive backs.
While Louisville quarterback Malik Cunningham ran for two TDs and passed for another, all of his production came in the second half with the outcome no longer in doubt.
Cunningham was held to 17 yards passing in the first half.
Louisville Coach Scott Satterfield conceded that his team was caught off guard by the changes in Ole Miss’ defensive scheme.
“Sometimes when you’re playing a first opponent, you don’t know exactly the things they’re going to be doing defensively,” he said. “We never got into a rhythm in the first half.”