Lane Kiffin jabs at Brent Venables over assertion Oklahoma was the better team: 'That's an interesting take'
Kiffin didn't see eye to eye with Venables after the Oklahoma coach said his team was simply out-executed in Saturday's game
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Just because the game between Ole Miss and Oklahoma is over doesn't mean the verbal sparring between the coaches is over. On Monday, Lane Kiffin reacted to the assertion from Brent Venables that he had the "better team" in the Rebels' 34-26 win over the Sooners.
After losing at home to Ole Miss, Venables evaluated his team's performance on his Sunday coach's show. Venables felt like his team played well overall, but Oklahoma made critical mistakes when Ole Miss did not.
"I felt like we were the better team, but at the end of the day, this is a game of performance and executing," Venables said. "I thought they out-executed us when it mattered the most."
Kiffin was presented with those remarks at his Monday press conference, and he took exception to them. The Ole Miss coach then listed off the ways in which his team outperformed Oklahoma in the win.
"That's a hot take, they had the better team," Kiffin said. "I wouldn't have thought people watching would say that. I felt that, for one, we won at their place. … We won by eight points, and I think we left a lot out there. I think we should've won by a couple scores. I don't know how he evaluated that game that they were the better team.
"I mean, we had way more yards. We had 21 downs to 14. We played 87 plays of offense, and they had one sack and didn't force any turnovers. That's an interesting take. Whatever he needs to say. Maybe he had the better team last year too when we beat them."
Halting a follow-up question, Kiffin twisted the knife a little more by pointing to his wins over Venables in national championship games.
"Maybe he had the better team at Oklahoma when we beat them 55-19 in the national championship," Kiffin said. "Maybe he had the better team when we beat them 45-40 in the national championship at Alabama."
In the 2005 Orange Bowl, Kiffin was a member of the USC coaching staff when the Trojans hammered Oklahoma and Brent Venables' defense to win a national title. About a decade later, Kiffin was the offensive coordinator at Alabama when the Crimson Tide won a national championship by lighting up Venables' unit at Clemson.
This latest verbal back-and-forth caps off a week that began with sparring when Kiffin lauded Venables for his "film study of signals." Venables brushed it off as a "weird kind of compliment."
