Lane Kiffin reflects on conversation with injured Jaxson Dart about adversity of father’s death, early losses

Lane Kiffin reflected on conversations with QB Jaxson Dart about adversity in facets of life. Ole Miss certainly had some on the field before coming back and beating Georgia.

But as Kiffin alluded to the off field adversity, such as losing his father, you don’t why certain things happen. So he brought it back to some early season struggles for the Rebels.

But they’ve since bounced back, Dart came back from an injury Saturday and Ole Miss is back in the College Football Playoff hunt.

“Yeah, I told him when losses happen in life, and I had a major one this summer, and you don’t know why things happen, you can’t figure them out at the time,” Kiffin said postgame. “And you know, maybe those two losses, the way we screwed those games up, you know, there was a reason, so that they would go through things, they’d have adversity today, which there was major adversity. We throw a pick. We get them to fourth down. They score a touchdown. Looks like our quarterback’s out, you know? So that’s not a real good start.”

Dart was 13 of 22 passing for 199 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He also ran eight times for 50 yards.

Austin Simmons subbed in during the injury and went five of six for 64 yards. Ole Miss, which won 28-10, led 10-7 after the first quarter.

But despite Dart’s injury and Simmons coming in, Ole Miss’ defense stepped up and only gave up three more points. 

Once Dart came back in, they were basically on cruise control.

“So really glad how they handled that adversity, gave up three points the rest of the day,” Kiffin said. “And Austin Simmons did a great job coming in, and like we told him, Hey, we’re gonna run the game plan. We’re gonna throw with you. You’re not gonna be one of these backup quarterbacks who just hands it off. And he did a great job. and I didn’t know, Jaxson was gonna come back in and Jaxson did some medical things, and came back and said I’m going in, so he went back in.”

Ole Miss gets a week off at 8-2 overall with two games left. Dart gets some extra time to rest before the Rebels are back in action at Florida on November 23rd and then play the Egg Bowl on November 29th at home.