Oct 28, 2025, 11:19 AM ET<\/p>\n
Lane Kiffin could not resist taking a shot at Brent Venables, sarcastically accusing the Oklahoma<\/a> coach of a “hot take” in his evaluation of last weekend’s game against Ole Miss<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kiffin and the seventh-ranked Rebels rallied for a 34-26 victory<\/a> Saturday in Norman, Oklahoma, against Venables and the Sooners. Venables said Sunday that he thought Oklahoma was “the better team” before conceding that Ole Miss “out-executed us.”<\/p>\n “That’s an interesting take. That’s a hot take [that] they have the better team,” Kiffin said Monday when asked about Venables’ comments. “I wouldn’t have thought that people watching would say that.<\/p>\n “I felt that one, we won at their place in weather that — as a defensive head coach — you would normally wish for, and won by eight points. And I think we left a lot out there. I think we should have won by a couple of scores. So I don’t know how he evaluated that game that they were the better team.”<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n Kiffin cited Ole Miss’ 26-14 victory last season at home against Oklahoma before mentioning other previous games he has coached against Venables’ teams.<\/p>\n “Maybe they had the better team last year, too, when we beat them,” said Kiffin, who shrugged before apologizing for interrupting a reporter’s follow-up question. “Sorry … maybe he had the better team in Oklahoma, when we beat him 55-19 in the national championship — maybe.<\/p>\n “Maybe he had the better team at Clemson<\/a>, when we beat him 45-40 in the national championship at Alabama<\/a>. Next question, my bad.”<\/p>\n Kiffin was an assistant under Pete Carroll at USC<\/a> when the Trojans beat the Sooners for the national title after the 2004 season. Venables was a defensive assistant on that Oklahoma team.<\/p>\n The coaches squared off again for the national championship 11 years later, when Kiffin was the offensive coordinator for the Nick Saban-coached Alabama team that beat Clemson for the NCAA title after the 2015 season. Venables was the Tigers’ defensive coordinator that year.<\/p>\n Kiffin’s Rebels were successful offensively Saturday against the Sooners, finishing with 431 yards of total offense against a Venables-coached team that led the nation in total defense and ranked second in scoring defense heading into the weekend.<\/p>\n “We had way more yards, 21 first downs to 14, and we played 87 plays of offense and they had one sack and didn’t force any turnovers,” Kiffin said. “That’s an interesting take. But whatever he needs to say.”<\/p>\n Ole Miss is scheduled to visit Oklahoma again next season. The Rebels (7-1, 4-1 SEC) host South Carolina<\/a> in their next game Saturday, while the Sooners (6-2, 2-2) visit No. 14 Tennessee<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct 28, 2025, 11:19 AM ET Lane Kiffin could not resist taking a shot at Brent Venables, sarcastically…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-256932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}