With former Alabama head coach Nick Saban transitioning into a career working for ESPN, the seven-time National Champion has spent the offseason talking with coaches around the country to get a feel for their programs as the season inches closer. One of those calls was made to Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin, a former assistant under Saban at Alabama for three years. While on the phone with one of the greatest football coaches to ever live, Kiffin asked his former boss for some advice on how to manage the sky-high expectations for his program, following an 11-win campaign — the first in Ole Miss history — last season. Saban's sage advice:
“He said, ‘Remind those players about rat poison,’” Lane Kiffin recounted to Blake Toppmeyer of USA Today. “‘Remind them that those people that are writing that stuff on the internet about how great they are, … it's probably some big fat guy in his underwear who doesn't know (crap) about football.’”
My goodness, I've never felt so attacked. Sure, I'm a little on the doughy side, and I'll never claim to know as much about football as either Lane Kiffin or Nick Saban, but let me assure you, as I type this out right now, I am not in my underwear. I am in gym shorts.
So with that said, despite the fact that Ole Miss is one of only three programs who were members of the conference at the time of the first SEC Championship Game in 1992 who haven't yet played in the conference title game, I believe this is the year that the Rebels will finally call themselves SEC champions, and I've got four good reasons for it.
1. The Lines of Scrimmage
Ole Miss suffered only two losses last season… an early season 24-10 loss at Alabama, and a 52-17 thrashing at the hands of Georgia in Athens. That Georgia game served as a wake up call for Lane Kiffin. That loss, one in which they were dominated by the more physically imposing Bulldogs, made the Rebels head coach realize where his team needed to improve most.
“The hope was, especially after the Georgia game, we need to build our offensive line better – (get) longer,” Kiffin said. “And we need to get bigger in the front seven. So, we went out aggressively in free agency, if I can just say what it is. We went out in free agency to attack that.”
Now, it wouldn't be far-fetched to say that the offensive and defensive line are among the strengths of a stacked Ole Miss roster. The Rebels five projected starters in the offensive line have a combined 141 college starts, and that includes Nate Kalepo and Julius Buelow, a pair of starting guards for Washington last season who transferred to Ole Miss following Kalen DeBoer's departure to Alabama. Center Caleb Warren and right tackle Micah Pettus will be returning starters from last year's team.
But if you ask Lane Kiffin what position group he's most excited about heading into the 2024 season, it's the defensive line.
“We really haven't had a premier D-line since we've been here, and so now we have a chance to have a mix of guys that really could be high NFL picks up there,” Kiffin said during an alumni event back in June (h/t David Eckert of the Mississippi Clarion Ledger). “I'm excited that if they develop like they should, we can really look good on defense up front, which really has not been the case since we've been here or the previous years before.”
Jared Ivey and JJ Pegues return as starters from last year's team, but the new faces are the ones driving the excitement. Walter Nolen (Texas A&M) and Princely Umanmielen (Florida) — the #2 and #12 players in the transfer portal respectively, according to On3 — will be starters along the Rebels front, and soon enough, they'll be high NFL Draft picks, just like their new head coach said. If both Nolen (the #1 recruit in the country in 2022) and Umanmielen (ranked in the top ten in tackles for loss and sacks in the SEC last season) make an All-SEC team on their way to the NFL, it wouldn't be a surprise at all.
2. Transfer Portal Haul
It was about two and a half years ago when Lane Kiffin took to Twitter to humorously declare himself the “Portal King.” However, given the work that Kiffin has done to improve his roster via the transfer portal each of the last three years, it doesn't feel like much of a joke. Consider, that in those 2022 and 2023 transfer portal classes, Kiffin landed numerous players who are still on the team as we enter the 2024 season and are slotted in as starters… guys like Jaxson Dart, Jared Ivey, JJ Pegues, Khari Coleman, Ulysses Bentley IV, Tre Harris, and Caden Prieskorn. However, the 2024 transfer portal class –ranked as the best in the country by various media outlets — is arguably Kiffin's best haul yet.
Nolen, Umanmielen, Kalepo and Buelow have already been covered above, but all across the roster there are new faces who are projected to be starting for Ole Miss this season. Chris Hardie (Jacksonville State) was an All-Conference USA edge rusher who figures to factor into the Rebels defensive line rotation. Chris Paul Jr. (Arkansas) will be starting at one of the linebacker spots, and at point guard for the Rebels basketball team (I kid). In the secondary, the Rebels have added four players — Brandon Turnage (Tennessee), Trey Amos (Alabama), Key Lawrence (Oklahoma), and Yam Banks (South Alabama) — who will see significant playing time in the Ole Miss secondary.
On the other side of the ball, Kiffin added two skill position players who figure to be contributors to an offense that was 16th in scoring last year. Henry Parrish Jr. (Miami FL) played his first two college seasons at Ole Miss before transferring down to the Sunshine State. He'll compete with Ulysses Bentley IV for touches out of the backfield, after rushing for 1,241 yards and 10 touchdowns over the last two seasons with the Hurricanes.
Perhaps the biggest addition on the offensive side is wide receiver Juice Wells, who started his collegiate career as a standout at James Madison, then transferred to South Carolina and earned All-SEC honors in 2022 after a debut season in which he hauled in 68 receptions for 928 yards and 6 touchdowns. Wells played in only three games for the Gamecocks last season due to a lingering foot injury, but looks to return to solid health and All-SEC form this year, giving quarterback Jaxson Dart another talented weapon to spread the ball around to.
3. Jaxson Dart
The work that Lane Kiffin has done to build a championship caliber roster at Ole Miss means nothing if the Rebels don't have a championship caliber quarterback. Fortunately for Kiffin and the 60,000+ fans who pack inside Vaught-Hemingway Stadium for each Rebels home game, Jaxson Dart is just that, and his sights are set on bringing a National Championship to Ole Miss for the first time since 1960.
“The motivation is we want a national championship,” Dart told reporters between drills during a late-June practice (h/t David Eckert of the Mississippi Clarion Ledger). “That's the way that we see it day in and day out. It's something that gets brought up on a daily basis with us and something that we truly believe that we can achieve this year.”
On the field, Jaxson Dart is among the most accomplished quarterbacks not just in the SEC this year, but in Ole Miss history. Dart already ranks 5th on the all-time Ole Miss leaderboard for passing yards. With another 3,300 yard season, he would move up to second all-time, trailing only Eli Manning. With 20 passing touchdowns, Dart would move up to 2nd on that list as well.
However, it's Jaxson Dart's off-the-field impact that could be what takes the Rebels to the next level. Lane Kiffin hasn't been shy about propping up his quarterback as a key reason why Ole Miss has done so well in the transfer portal.
“I think that a number of guys would say, especially offensively. I think the receivers would tell you that, like Juice Wells. Not just portal guys, but even the guys that came back like Tre (Harris), like Prieskorn (tight end, Caden). They would tell you that he recruited them really well too,” Kiffin said of his starting quarterback back in March, according to Parrish Alford of the Magnolia Tribune). “I don’t know that I’ve seen over time a player actively recruit more to put together a team on both sides of the ball than Jaxson did this off-season. It says a lot about him, says a lot about being a leader, even potentially as a head coach one day if he wants to be. He has really special qualities, and one of them is to get people to follow him.”
If Jaxson Dart can bring an SEC Title — or, can you imagine, a National Title — to Ole Miss, don't be surprised if Rebels fans would be willing to follow Dart to the Mississippi River to see if he could walk on water.
4. Favorable Schedule
Even if the Rebels were faced with a brutal schedule, there's enough talent on the roster to rise above it and reach the SEC Championship Game. However, Ole Miss won't need to play Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, Missouri or Texas A&M this year. Georgia and Oklahoma both have to come to Mississippi. A road test at LSU is probably the only game away from home that Ole Miss won't be favored in. Assuming that the Rebels could escape their regular season schedule with just one loss in conference, a spot in the SEC Title Game can be theirs.
But with the program enjoying the most success they've had since the 1960's, why not dream even bigger? Why not follow Jaxson Dart's lead and shoot for the National Championship? Sure, Ole Miss might be not one of the traditional powerhouses who we're accustomed to seeing compete for the biggest prize in college football, but maybe this season is just the start of a Golden Age of Rebels football. Hotty Toddy!
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