Elijah Moore wanted Jonathan Mingo to break his record. Lane Kiffin made sure he did.
Jonathan Mingo wasn’t aware he was on the verge of Ole Miss history at Vanderbilt on Saturday.
But Lane Kiffin, his head coach, knew. So did Elijah Moore, whose single-game receiving record Mingo was chasing late in a 52-28 blowout.
Actually, Moore took things a step further, texting Kiffin during the game, imploring him to get Mingo the ball.
“Elijah’s somebody I really looked up to,” Mingo would go on to say afterwards. Ole Miss improved to 6-0 (2-0 SEC) overall.
“He’s like a big brother to me.”
Little brother now has bragging rights.
Mingo stands alone in the Ole Miss record books with his 247 yards, including a pair of 70-plus-yard touchdown receptions. Moore, now with the NFL’s New York Jets, set the previous mark with 238 yards on a school-record 14 receptions against (who else?) Vanderbilt two years ago.
Mingo’s performance is tops in the FBS this season, besting a 246-yard output by Kent State’s Dante Cephas last week. Mingo’s the third Ole Miss receiver to record 230 yards and two receiving touchdowns, joining Moore and A.J. Brown.
“God has put me through a lot of paces,” Mingo said. “Telling me just to be patient.”
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It’s fitting Mingo passed Moore.
Arguably no player was more influential in Mingo’s early-career development. They were Ole Miss teammates when Mingo — a former four-star in-state prospect — was a freshman.
But he’s also wearing No. 1, in part, as a tribute to Brown, now the star wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles. No. 1 has become synonymous with Ole Miss wide receiver greats. Laquon Treadwell, another record-setter, and a one-time first-round NFL Draft selection of the Minnesota Vikings, wore it, too.
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MIngo’s the first Ole Miss player to record multiple 70-yard touchdown receptions in a single season since Brown got three in 2017.
“I didn’t really practice too much during the off-season,” Mingo said. “Fall camp was my first time being full-go and cleared for everything. That was probably my first time being full-go. You can’t be out there playing football being timid and scared to hurt something. You’re going to start to overcompensate and you can hurt something else.
“You’ve got to put it in the back of your mind.”
The past was but a distant, distant memory as he was running away from Commodores on Saturday.
Mingo had receptions of 72 (career-long, touchdown), 71 (touchdown) and 48 yards. He has eight receptions of at least 25 yards, seven of at least 30, four of at least 40, and two beyond 70 yards on the year. He’s also the first Rebel to record multiple 70-yard touchdowns of any kind since Jerrion Ealy in 2019.
Mingo kept coming back to being “blessed.”
You see, it’s less about bragging rights (he doesn’t care about them) than full-on pride for Mingo, whose journey to Ole Miss immortality included a devastating foot injury.
He actually not-so-celebrated the one-year anniversary of his first operation earlier this week.
“It was a hard thing,” Mingo said. “I had surgery last year around this time. I had it again in April to make sure everything would be straight for the season. It’s just a blessing to be out there on the field. I don’t take no day for granted.
“Record is probably like the least thing I’m worried about. I’m just happy to be playing football.”
