Mississippi head coach Lane Kiffin made shocking allegations that a Texas Tech player spit on one of his players and possibly used a racial slur during a fourth-quarter fight in Wednesday night’s TaxAct Texas Bowl game. After the game, Kiffin defended Ole Miss wideout Jordan Watkins as he said he was incorrectly given a personal foul penalty early on in the fourth quarter during the Rebels’ 42-25 loss to the Red Raiders.
Watkins was not involved.
“They announce our 11, which is Jordan Watkins, who wasn’t in the fight,” Kiffin said after the game, via ESPN.com. “It was their 11 that was fighting 71 [Ole Miss lineman Jayden Williams], and everybody knew because their own coaches were yelling at the guy.”
He added, “There was a racial slur involved; that’s not the point of what we’re talking about, [it’s] about the spitting part. I brought our own 71 up to the officials, right or wrong, you see him crying? He’s not crying, not because he got spit on, it’s because something was said.
“I’m not going to [confirm what was said], because I did not hear it, [I’m not going to] say that that happened for sure that he gave a racial slur to our player. I was told that that was said in that [incident], but I did not hear that. So that would obviously be a giant issue.”
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It should be noted that Moore and Williams are both Black.
Kiffin said he spoke to Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire after the game about the call.
“I talked to their head coach afterwards, he was like: ‘Crazy officiating out there.’ I go, ‘Yeah that was really bad on that one that your guy spit, and our guy got the penalty.’ He was like, ‘Yeah I know.’”
After starting the season a perfect 7-0, Ole Miss stumbled down the stretch and finished the season at just 8-5. The recipe to be great is clearly there, they just need to put it together and learn how to finish better in 2023.
