Ole Miss Football: Rebels add Western Kentucky coach to staff

Ole Miss Football head coach Lane Kiffin has been busy this month adding several players and coaches to the Rebels roster and we now have a third addition to the coaching staff. The latest addition is cornerbacks coach Keynodo Hudson.

Hudson is coming to Oxford from Western Kentucky where he served in the same role. Lane Kiffin and Keynodo Hudson have a history together, so the addition does not necessarily come as a surprise.

Hudson previously worked under Lane Kiffin at USC in 2012 and 2013 as a defensive assistant and at Florida Atlantic where he was also the cornerbacks coach in 2017 and 2018.

After Leaving Florida Atlantic in 2018 Hudson would go on to coach the cornerbacks at the University of Illinois under head coach Lovie Smith for two more years from 2019-2020 before Smith left to coach the Houston Texans in the NFL.

Keynodo then moved on to Western Kentucky where he has been coaching for the last two years. The 44-year-old Hudson is being brought in to replace former Ole Miss cornerbacks coach, Sam Carter, who recently left the program to join the staff with the Purdue Boilermakers.

A season ago under Hudson Western Kentucky ranked 84th in the country in pass defense and fifth in Conference USA, giving up a little over 236 passing yards per game.

Hudson will be tasked with helping improve the Ole Miss pass defense, which will undoubtedly be difficult among college football’s toughest division in the SEC.

Earlier this month the Ole Miss football staff added a new defensive Coordinator in Pete Golding who served in the same role at Alabama.

The Rebels also added a safeties coach, Wes Neighbors, who is coming to Oxford from Maryland where he also coached safeties,

With the addition of a new defensive coordinator, a new safeties coach, and now a new cornerbacks coach it seems as if head coach Lane Kiffin is trying to overhaul the Rebels’ pass defense in hopes to keep up with the SEC offenses.