Lane Kiffin delivers blunt assessment on state of Ole Miss program
The immense success Ole Miss found last season under Lane Kiffin saw his veteran leaders step up, take the charge and lead the Rebels to their first 10-win regular season in program history alongside a Sugar Bowl berth. Kiffin has lost some of those stars to graduation, the transfer portal and the NFL Draft, meaning he’s in need of a new face to step into the spotlight.
“We had a lot to replace,” Kiffin said on The Rich Eisen Show. “We’ve already had 12 major college transfers come in on this transfer portal run, so we’re gonna replace a lot of really good players that were good kids like Matt [Corral]. That won’t be easy.”
Former USC quarterback Jaxson Dart headlines the transfer class in name value and NIL after appearing in five games last season with the Trojans as a true freshman. Dart completed 117 of his 189 passes for 1,353 yards, nine touchdowns and five interceptions along with 22 rushing attempts for 43 yards and two more touchdowns in his limited role but looks to be the presumptive starter for the Rebels this fall.
Kiffin also nabbed commitments from four other four-star recruits in Michael Trigg, Ladarius Tennison, Jeremiah Pegues and Jared Ivey, but the real steal of the offseason for the Rebels in the transfer market: former five-star running back recruit Zach Evans from TCU. Evans was the No. 1 tailback in the Class of 2020 and No. 14 player in the nation overall.
In two seasons with the Horned Frogs, Evans carried the ball 146 times for 1,063 yards and nine touchdowns as well as 18 receptions for 206 yards and one score as an all-purpose back, earning another feather in the cap of the so called “Portal King“
The excitement coming out of the Ole Miss program carrying over from last season’s run, to acquiring the transfer portal’s finest, Kiffin knows he can’t let those numbers and rankings go to his head and has a long offseason ahead if he wants to duplicate 2021’s success with basically a new group.
“Just because things look good on paper and good players doesn’t mean they mesh together,” Kiffin said. “Look at basketball, NBA basketball. These teams are supposed to be great with these couple of great players and rosters doesn’t mean — that’s not how it works.
“So we get a lot of work to putting them together and getting them to buy into the culture and all that because it’s kind of like we’ve got all these new adoptive kids coming in that were raised in all these different places. It’s not like they’re all high school kids. You know, these kids are three, four years at other colleges, so it’s a new kind of world to try to break into.”
The first chance to sneak a peak at the star-studded, new-look Ole Miss Rebels will be during the spring game on April 23 as fans hope to see a glimpse of the instant impact some of the transfers are expected to bring to Oxford this fall.