Ole Miss is looking to avoid rat poison heading into hyped up season

Ole Miss ent the 2024 season with sky-high expectations. Lane Kiffin enters year five in Oxford with a 34-15 overall record leading the Rebels to a pair of 10-2 finishes in 2021 and 2023. That kind of year should lead to a College Football Playoff bid in the 12-team format.

Anything short of a playoff appearance will be considered a disappointment. The weight of those expectations came out during Kiffin’s time on the podium at the Omni Hotel on Monday afternoon at SEC Media Days.

The former head coach at Tennessee and USC is again trying to balance a heavy transfer portal class with impressive returning talent. There is also the level-up expectation that Ole Miss is dealing with thanks to a returning star quarterback (Jaxson Dart) and plenty of other NFL talent.

Rat poison is real. Ole Miss is trying to avoid it.

“Just continue to remind them. I get it. We’re all humans. You read stuff you start to believe it when you see it enough. Just got to continue to remind them that really means nothing,” Kiffin said about the high expectations. “Really doesn’t.”

“On the plane ride down here with the three of them, just continue to remind them about that. You know, that doesn’t mean anything. Nowadays it’s harder as you mentioned because it’s coming to their phones all day long, how great they are or you’re in the ranked here and supposed to be ranked here as the receiver or any of that stuff.”

We are entering the 12-team College Football Playoff era in 2024 and Ole Miss figures to be a program that is ready to benefit. Almost any team that has earned a New Year’s Six Bowl in the past will get into the sport’s expanded postseason tournament and the Rebels have done that twice in four years under Lane Kiffin. The schedule could soften in a divisionless era now that the Rebels are out of the SEC West.

This is a football organization that seems ready to strike. Will new expectations knock a fast-rising program off track?

The Rebels loaded up on some big-ticket portal additions highlighted by SEC transfers Juice Wells (WR, South Carolina), Walter Nolen (iDL, Texas A&M), and Princely Umanmielen (EDGE, Florida) to help avoid that kind of letdown. Ole Miss has received the financial support to take the next step. Now that next step must come.

Lane Kiffin is attempting to avoid the rat poison trap that has knocked many programs off track. Nick Saban always knew best.