Lane Kiffin Says Alabama Offense is Difficult to Assess

The Ole Miss head coach discussed the unique challenges facing the Crimson Tide quarterbacks.

The No. 15 Ole Miss Rebels come to Tuscaloosa for the SEC opener against the No. 15 Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday. 

The Rebels have an excellent opportunity to come to The Capstone and secure a victory as the Crimson Tide is scrambling to find an identity on offense through the season's first three weeks.

Alabama head coach Nick Saban cut off any speculation under center this week by naming redshirt sophomore Jalen Milroe as the starting quarterback, but that doesn't prevent Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin from preparing for different looks on Saturday.

"Ya, that's a unique challenge. One that I don't think you ever face normally, because usually it's. two, not three. You know, and whether they go back (to Milroe) and so that's challenging because obviously one of the three is very different than the other two," said Kiffin in his Monday press conference. "But you've got to be ready for whoever plays. We've got to work on ourselves first, which we've got to play a lot better on defense. We did not play very good on Saturday."

Kiffin revealed on Sunday that he noticed a change in the Alabama defense in it's approach to the South Florida game this past week but when asked about the Crimson Tide offense he said it was a little harder to tell.

"A little bit. I think that's a little hard to asses because they're trying to figure out their quarterback. Any time you're trying to do that with different quarterbacks that's a work in progress. I'm sure they'll work it out. Previous games don't mean anything year-to-year or week-to-week. You see that in college football all the time. That's why I say all the time, in the NFL teams play each other twice and the same team doesn't win every time twice. Every week's different. Just because these guys struggled a little bit down in a non-conference type of game they're not used to playing with some weather issue, it means nothing about playing in the SEC at home."

If Milroe indeed leads the Alabama offense on Saturday, as Saban announced, he presents a dual-threat ability that will make life challenging on Ole Miss, and former Alabama, defensive coordinator Pete Golding.

"He's (Milroe) hard to to catch, he's hard to tackle, hard to bring down, can run physical too. So he's a big challenge as you saw early in the season," said Kiffin.

Alabama and Ole Miss kick off at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday in Bryant-Denny Stadium. The Crimson Tide opened as an 11-point favorite but the line has dropped to favor the Tide by 6-points.

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