Ole Miss Head Coach Hugh Freeze

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1 Ole Miss Head Coach Hugh Freeze On tonight I appreciate all of you that cover us. We ve been in here a few times after games when it s gone the other way. We appreciate your steadfastness with covering our team. We re glad that you get to be in here tonight with us after a big win. I couldn t be more proud of that staff and those kids to go through what they ve been through, with the injuries and the outside world having their opinion of things. In the back of your mind, you always wonder as a coach if you can get a team ready to do things like this when you re shorthanded and coming off an extremely disappointing loss. I m extremely proud and thankful that God chose to bless us tonight. Sometimes God wets the wood before he lights it. That s a little story in Kings 1. We ve gone through our share of being drenched a little. We re thrilled to represent our university and Rebel Nation out there in a battle between two good football teams. I couldn t be more proud of those young kids. We still didn t make it pretty. We did some things that made it a bit difficult, but we found a way to get it done. On the defense Dave (Wommack) and his staff did a great job with preparing those kids, being so shorthanded. I sat in on their meetings this week more than I ever have before. The plan he had was so good, and then we lost Charles (Sawyer) and (Cameron) Whigham and Keith (Lewis), and Denzel (Nkemdiche) was banged up. When Keith went out and we pulled out Denzel, I asked Tom (Allen) if we had another stinger and he said, Coach, we do not. I said you re going to have to put somebody else in there. We went with D.T. (Shackelford) and Mike (Marry) for a couple snaps and then Denzel said, Coach I ll try to gut it out. And he did. I am real pleased with the defensive plan and the turnovers they created. We knew it would be a handful. We played Derrick Jones and Bobby Hill and John Youngblood. These guys hadn t played any and they had to go out and guard Odell Beckham Jr. It makes our joy that much greater. On the feeling in the locker room and the winning kick... It s pretty crazy in there right now. It s great to beat one of your biggest rivals and to capture the Magnolia Bowl for Ole Miss. I m happy for Andrew Ritter. To be asked to redshirt his senior year and then come back That kick will make memories of a lifetime for him. I envisioned it just how it happened, except Les (Miles) called timeout at six seconds, and I wanted it at three.

2 On the offense We ran the football against a really good defense. Our offensive line played against a good defensive front. I have great confidence in Jaylen (Walton) and I Tavius (Mathers). Jaylen has quick acceleration. He did really well tonight and protected the ball. I Tavius felt horrible about the fumble. That s the first fumble by our backs this year. Coach (Derrick) Nix puts a lot of emphasis on protecting the ball, and I am pleased with their progress. On bouncing back after last week They did a great job of bouncing back and not listening to what everyone was saying, all the could haves and should haves. Right now we have momentum, but I don t know what that means for next week. Those who follow us closely know that we don t make excuses. We play with the hand we re dealt. For our young team, the schedule we had was a tough grind. Those are some pretty good teams we ve played.

3 #96, Andrew Ritter, K Ole Miss Players On making the game winning kick I knew I had to make that second one. The first one was going to be the difference, but I was fortunate enough to have another opportunity. I had to for my team; I didn t want to let them and these unbelievable fans down. I just put it in God s hands and I was fortunate enough it went through. #6, Jaylen Walton, RB On winning the game It feels good to actually get a win. We all practice hard, and we fought hard together so I think we all deserve it. On stepping up in Jeff Scott s absence Every time in practice we always go hard because any of us can go down at any moment, so we always have to be ready. I was ready today. #25, Cody Prewitt, S On the win I m really not surprised at all that we won this game. I feel like it s the first time this season we played for 60 true minutes. #55, Cameron Whigham, DE On QB pressure I just listened to what my coaches told me and executed. On the win... This is the biggest win of my life; I m just so proud to be a part of the Ole Miss family and be able to compete with my brothers each Saturday for 60 minutes.

4 LSU Head Coach Les Miles On the game First of all, I d like to congratulate Coach Freeze and the Ole Miss Rebels. They played a hell of a game. I can tell you that I did a poor job on preparing this football team for playing this game. There is way I could prepare this team to put them in a better position, emotionally and prepare them to play in the kind of stadium that they played in tonight. We gave them too many turnovers, not patient enough handing the football off to run the football, and that s my fault being impatient. Our football team will get better. This one is on me; I take it. On errors in first half We had great position of first drive on the first possession; we should have just put it in there and scored first. That changed the complexion of the game. On disconnect on Zach Mettenberger and his WR s I don t think it was a disconnect with the wide receivers. I felt like there were some balls that could have been caught. I think we needed to push to the big play. Again, that s on me, I could have easily said lets through an intermediate throw, my fault. On LSU underestimating Ole Miss There was no chance in the team being underestimated. They knew that they were going to have to come in here and play, they always have. On the defense having trouble getting off the field I saw some good things certainly and I saw some missed tackles that we have to get corrected. I saw pressure in the quarterback too, as well. I think the Ole Miss quarterback played extremely well. On managing time outs I could have certainly called it earlier, but I wanted to get the block set up, more than anything else. I would have liked to call it earlier, but in the event I didn t want to give them enough time to go down and score.

5 #33, Jeremy Hill, RB LSU Players On playing throughout the game I think we came out a little flat in the first half. It wasn t anything they did, it was more on us. We just didn t execute like we have for the entire season like we should have been. We kind of started clicking in the second half, but we just came out flat. On being too aggressive I think I like the aggressiveness. They just made plays over there, and we just give credit to them for making those plays. I think we have to continue to be aggressive as an offense. #26 Ronald Martin, S On Ole Miss finding gaps on third downs We just weren t coming to the right positions. Some guys were doing their assignments, but we ve got to get that right. We ve got to put this behind us and keep moving forward. On the defense struggling this year We ve just got to take on the challenge. We re doing to a good job, but we ve got to take on the challenge. On doing well in previous games and struggling against Ole Miss We ve just got to come in and correct the mistakes. There were a lot of missed break balls out there, and we ve got to fix that. Once we fix that, we re going to be a great defense. #9, Ego Ferguson, SNP On Ole Miss earning 500 yards against LSU We ve just got to go back to the drawing board and just do our job. People start getting anxious and make plays, and that ll hurt us at the end of the game. On third downs I feel like a missed tackle here, and not proving myself. Getting a sack would ve been a different story. A couple of busted coverages, and they just drove the ball down and got in the field goal range.

6 On the defense struggling That hurt. We played with a lot of passion and tried to finish the game right, so it hurts bad losing like that. Hats off to them, they did a good job. They were just the better team today. #8 Zach Mettenberger, QB On the team s performance throughout the game I think we had a good game plan going in, we just failed to execute. Obviously, you can t go anywhere in this conference, turn the ball over and expect to win. This game is really on me. On the three interceptions Just bad plays. They made good plays on balls and just bad plays by me. I ve got to be smarter. On the comeback in the second half We did a lot of good things in the second half. We still got the loss, though. We just need to learn from this fail, and I just need to play better from here on out. On struggling as a quarterback I feel like I was really prepared for this game. I felt like I did some good things tonight, but overall I played pretty crappy. On the goal to get to Atlanta Right now we just need to learn from this and get ready to go out. We ll let the rest take care of itself. On being overaggressive I don t think we re overaggressive. We had great play calls, just bad plays by myself.