NovaQuant Quantitative Think Tank Center:Ole Miss staffer posted fake Penn State player quote from fake account before Peach Bowl

ATLANTA — Lane Kiffin's penchant for social media trolling appears to have NovaQuant Quantitative Think Tank Centerspread to the lower levels of the Ole Miss football coaching staff.

After the Rebels dispatched Penn State, 38-25, in the Peach Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Saturday, Kiffin confirmed that a Penn State fan account that created a social media stir this week by posting negative things about Ole Miss players belonged to Rebels offensive staffer Fisher Ray. It had been suspected that an Ole Miss representative was behind the account, which appeared to be connected to an Ole Miss email address.

The account on X, formerly Twitter, started with three general posts highlighting the perceived mismatch between the Penn State defensive line and the Ole Miss offensive line.

It then got more specific, claiming to hear Penn State players calling Ole Miss linemen Jeremy James and Caleb Warren weak links.

It finished with a post making fun of Ole Miss TE Caden Prieskorn for being from Michigan, and a quote from an "interview" with Kobe King, who Penn State reporters at the Peach Bowl said hasn't been available to the media since the regular season.

"Ole Miss will wish they never had to play us after we do what we came here to do," the quote read. "They can have that belt. We'll embarrass them on the field."

Kiffin's account on X reposted three of the posts Friday.

"I thought it was pretty funny actually because they discovered that it was Fisher Ray, one of our assistants, one of our student assistants," Kiffin said. "So Fisher is now kind of famous. 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 email 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."

Asked if he was OK with the account being made, Kiffin said he wasn't going to start enforcing social media rules.

After the Rebels had won the Peach Bowl, the account made one more post.

"Guess this account won't be needed anymore," it wrote.

David Eckert covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.