Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin always makes for an interesting interview (just ask Paul Finebaum). And ahead of Saturday’s Ole Miss-Georgia SEC showdown, Kiffin appeared on College GameDay while doing a walk-through from the Rebels’ hotel.
This week represents the 20th anniversary of the “Bush Push” in USC’s dramatic win over Notre Dame, and Kiffin — USC’s offensive coordinator in 2005 — was asked about the play that featured Reggie Bush pushing Matt Leinart into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown.
“We didn’t have analytics back then,” Kiffin said. “So, if you actually think about the ‘Bush Push,’ it’s a really dumb thing to do, because you should be throwing in that situation so that you have two plays right there. But we know a lot more now than we did back then.”
College GameDay analyst Kirk Herbstreit noted to Kiffin, “It looks like you’re in a nice hotel.”
“Hopefully, the nice hotel will help us,” Kiffin said. “You know, two years ago, we stayed down in Atlanta, not very nice hotel, and got ran out of this stadium. They’ve got us in a vineyard over here.”
“There’s actually a spa,” Kiffin continued. “There’s some people walking in the spa right now… Yeah, there’s people in their robes over there. It’s actually kind of weird.”
“I hope our players don’t see that,” Kiffin joked. “Our players will come out and play too soft. Coach (Nick) Saban would be so mad right now. He’d be yelling at our director of football, ‘How can there be people over there in robes? We’re supposed to be focused. I don’t even remember the question. Sorry.”
Kiffin also dropped in some “rat poison” talk in honor of Saban.
“That’s rat poison… You’re rat poisoning me,” Kiffin told Pat McAfee.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.