OXFORD, Ms. — Lane Kiffin joined ESPN's College GameDay ahead of the Tigers' historic matchup against Ole Miss on Saturday night. 

As emotions ran high around Kiffin's return to Oxford, leaving many fans rattled, Kiffin said he advised his players not to play on emotion.

"Obviously it's gonna be there, and there's gonna be some of it, especially for some of these coaches coming back and most importantly for some of these players coming back," Kiffin said.

Kiffin coached at Ole Miss for six seasons before leaving to join the Tigers.

"But to play on execution. This will be a really competitive game for a long period of time. It's a lot of plays, and so you got to really stay focused and not listen to all the noise and all the chatter entering into the stadium," Kiffin said through roars of boos and curses from the College Gameday crowd. 

"But thanks guys, I really appreciate you gaslighting them this morning with this," he joked. 

Kiffin went on to explain that he deliberately chose not to hide the players from the intense adversity from fans.

"We just try to do everything to simulate the game, simulate the day, you know, whether it's having a mock game before the Clemson game or in this situation just having people heckle them just so they get used to it so they try not to react when they get into that setting today."

The Tigers previously faced several controversies this season as the SEC considered kicking LSU out of the conference.

Despite the growing adversity, Kiffin stayed positive, saying, "What an awesome thing for college football to have this game have this much energy to have two states behind their programs like this from governors to everybody. I mean, this is college football."

The Tigers will kick off against Ole Miss on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.