Atlanta– Had Penn State beat Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss in the 2023 Peach Bowl Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a bizarre social media sequence from the night before the game would have been pinpointed by some as a motivator.
Here’s what happened.
An account on X (formerly Twitter), called “WeAre_PennSt23”, began writing quotes from Penn State’s players.
Here’s an example:
“Walking through college football HOF in ATL today and heard some of our players talking about how soft the Ole Miss OL had been all week. They told me they’re targeting J. James and C. Warren up the middle all game long. Those poor guys…”
Weirdo behavior @FisherRay_5 pic.twitter.com/qicWU1vTig
— The Basic Blues Podcast (@BasicBluesPod) December 30, 2023
Here’s another:
“Kobe King said in his interview that “Ole Miss will wish they never had to play us after they do what we came here to do. They can have that belt. We’ll embarrass them on the field.”
Hey Lane, trying to manufacture your own bulletin board material is pretty low brow. Next time at least make sure you don’t use an Ole Miss email attached to it🤷🏻♂️ pic.twitter.com/9v44pBu4pL
— Penn State Talk (@PSURecruitTalk) December 30, 2023
Here’s what’s weird about these posts: None of the information was accurate.
In fact, Penn State linebacker King didn’t speak with reporters at any point during the week.
But the story gets even weirder. For one, a man named Lane Monte Kiffin retweeted the fictitious King quote. After some investigation by social media users, it became apparent that the mastermind of the “WeAre_PennSt23” account was Ole Miss student assistant Fisher Ray. It was excellent “bulletin board” material for Penn State, but it didn’t end up affecting the result. Ole Miss won 38-25.
After the game, a reporter asked Kiffin about the quote, and he confirmed the speculation.
“I was made aware of that,” Kiffin said. “I’m glad we won so you wouldn’t be bringing that up in the press conference and they’d be saying that motivated them.”
Kiffin thought the whole thing was “pretty funny”.
“Fisher is now kind of famous,” he said. “But I thought it was really cool last night when he showed it to me, he’s like, these Penn State fans now, they’re into this. They researched his password and e-mail and were able to figure out which guy it was that started it. It was all in good fun. I hope the fans had fun with it.”
Kobe King was asked about the situation Saturday.
Per Rich Scarcella of the Reading Eagle, King said he found out about the situation the night before the game.
“One of my teammates sent it to me,” King said. “It didn’t really matter. I didn’t pay much attention to it. They did what they did. It’s disappointing.”
Here's what #PennState LB Kobe King said about the post from a burner account that erroneously quoted him.
"I found out last night. One of my teammates sent it to me. It didn’t really matter. I didn’t pay much attention to it. They did what they did. It’s disappointing."— Rich Scarcella (@nittanyrich) December 30, 2023
