Ole Miss head coach Kermit Davis was ejected with 14:31 remaining in Saturday’s ugly loss at home to Alabama. Over the standard 40 minutes of play, 49 fouls were called, an average of one foul per 48.9 seconds of play. The Rebel head coach has been critical at times this season about officiating, but maybe none more so than on Saturday evening. Below is everything the Rebel coach said regarding officiating, after the loss.

Davis’s opening statement: “Obviously, I’ll follow SEC protocol. I’ll do what I do every week: make a phone call to Mark Whitehead and make a phone call to Dan Leibowitz. We’ll send in all the clips and they’ll respond to the clips. That’s all you can say. That’s the SEC protocol and we’ll do that first thing in the morning.”

Question: Can you go into a little more detail about what the protocol entails?

Davis: “We talk about if there’s good things or concerns. Dan is a great guy to bounce things off. We clip the plays and then send them to the conference office. They give us our feedback from there. I assume, then, that they probably send the clips to the officials and they have comments from there. That’s all I know about how the process works, from us. The office has been really good about getting back to us and responding to all the clips that we send in throughout the year.”

Question: Can you take us through the play where Breein (Tyree) got the technical?

Davis: “I can’t even remember now, I guess they called a block on him. Breein reacted. I can’t remember what he said, but I know he didn’t say anything derogatory or personal. I know that for sure. But (Breein) was assessed a technical and not long after that, he threw me out.”

Question: You appeared to be pretty boisterous at times during the first half of the game. But you weren’t that animated at that point when you were thrown out?

Davis: “I wasn’t. I wasn’t. It kind of caught me by surprise. But that’s what happened.”

Question: Forty-nine fouls, I’m not trying to get you fined, but a game like that doesn’t have a lot of flow. 

Davis: “Please don’t (get me fined), my wife’s warned me, alright… You hate it for the fans and the players. You want games to have rhythm. This is not negative towards officiating, but I think everyone wants that. But this game never got into a rhythm.”

Question: Weird question, but what do you do when you’re ejected? Are you in the locker room watching?

Davis: “This is my second, no third, Division I game I’ve been ejected. One at Idaho and one at Middle (Tennessee). A little better accommodations here than at Middle, because you have TV and cable and you get to watch the game. I got ejected one time at Louisville, coach (Rick) Pitino’s game at the old Freedom Hall, and they threw me out. I don’t know how they threw me out of that game. Some games I deserve to be thrown out, but that one I got thrown out. I went into this old dressing room in Freedom Hall and there’s no TVs. I finally start walking around the court and our team was playing their tails off. We were right there with Louisville, playing our tails off, a lot better after I got thrown out. I was trying to watch it and there was a guy in the box who goes ‘hey that was the guy that got thrown out of the game.’ He asks if I want to come in the box and sit and watch the last five minutes. I said sure, and you know, in Kentucky they offer me a bourbon. I said I probably shouldn’t have a bourbon watching the team play. So that was a little better accommodations. But today I just watched in the locker room. It was hard to watch, but it’s one of those things.”