Lane Kiffin criticizes Jaxson Dart, Luke Altmyer following scrimmage

As the Ole Miss quarterback competition rolls along, all eyes are on Jaxson Dart and Luke Altmyer. Lane Kiffin didn’t sound thrilled with their performances in Saturday’s scrimmage, though.

In a post-scrimmage press conference, Kiffin gave a blunt assessment of the two players’ performances as they compete to replace Matt Corral as the Rebels’ starting quarterback.

“I thought the first two guys [Dart and Altmyer] didn’t play great and took too many sacks — even though we’re not hitting them, that would’ve been sacks,” Kiffin told reporters.

Still, he thought one quarterback had a good day. Kinkead Dent put together a solid performance, according to Kiffin, and the Rebels headman admitted his play-calling might have had something to do with that.

“We play a little game in the quarterback room predicting the MVPs for the day and guess them,” Kiffin said. “I would like to go on record that I picked Kinkade to be MVP today. That may have had something to do with the play-calling down there to get him some extra touchdown passes to win that bet. But he did a good job. Made a lot of plays.”

Dart is gearing up for his first season in Oxford after leaving USC via the transfer portal. He appeared in six games last year as a true freshman, throwing for 1,353 yards and nine touchdowns. But he’s competing with Altmyer, who played in four games as Corral’s backup and threw for 192 yards and a touchdown in that time.

Kiffin isn’t showing his hand in the battle, though, with the season just three weeks away. He wants to make the decision based on the current product and not worry about what either quarterback has done in the past.

“That would have absolutely nothing with how we play players here,” Kiffin said. “We’ve got tons of examples over time. We don’t care how many stars you are or where you’re from. Whether you’re from the state or whether you’re not.

“When I got here, I was dumb for playing the other quarterback. We don’t look at anything that way. Doesn’t matter where he came from or whether he played or how many stars he is. It will have nothing to do with if he plays but fair question.”