Lane Kiffin shares excitement over addition of Walker Howard

There’s no answer yet as to who is starting at quarterback for Ole Miss this fall and, in turn, if it will be LSU transfer Walker Howard. Even so, Lane Kiffin is still very happy to have him in their program in Oxford.

Kiffin spoke about the addition of Howard in the transfer portal while at SEC Media Days last week. He described him as “competitive” and talked briefly about the excitement that they have to have him as part of their quarterback room.

“We’re excited that Walker came in,” Kiffin said. “Really competitive kid. He really jumped into the playbook, had a really good spring. We’re excited about adding him to that room”

Howard is the least experienced of the Rebel’s options at quarterback this fall. He appeared in two games and threw just four passes last season in Baton Rouge with all of those attempts coming in the Tiger’s 56-point victory over Purdue in the Citrus Bowl.

Still, Howard remains highly touted. As part of the 2022 class, he left high school as a four-star prospect in On3’s Industry Rankings. He was a Top-50 recruit overall and was rated as a Top-10 QB in the class.

Again, Howard has a lot of competition ahead of him with Jaxson Dart and Spencer Sanders also both vying for the spot. With that said, it could be his job at some point in the future which is why Kiffin is content to have him in the fold at Ole Miss.

Kiffin would ‘prefer’ not using two-quarterback system

Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin has options at the quarterback position heading into 2023. Rebels incumbent quarterback Jaxson Dart is back for the season and Oklahoma State transfer Spencer Sanders is also fighting for the starting job.

Most of the discussion around the quarterbacks has been as a zero-sum game. One quarterback would win the job. One quarterback would lose it.

But Kiffin was asked about another possibility Thursday at SEC Media Days: whether he would be interested in using a two-quarterback system.

“I would prefer that not to happen,” Kiffin said. “But again, we don’t ever do something just because we’re supposed to. If that’s the best chance to win, then we would do that. I just think that that’s been challenging. There’s some times you can point where it’s worked. But most of the time, it’s not really worked great. The team’s got two different people (calling) cadence and different plays and stuff. So I would prefer that not to happen.”