GameDay Primer: Ole Miss welcomes Mercer to usher in 129th season of Rebel football

Ole Miss will kick off the 129th season of Rebel football Saturday at 1 p.m. CT inside Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. 

The Rebels enter a season ranked for the third straight year. Ole Miss has been ranked in 30 of the last 32 poll releases, including a streak of 29 across 2021 and 2022.

Ole Miss will take on Mercer for just the second time in history. The last meeting came in Macon, Georgia, 112 years ago (November 4, 1911). Ole Miss won, 34-0. 

The Bears have already opened the 2023-24 campaign. Mercer last week came away with a 17-7 win over North Alabama at the FCS Kickoff Classic. Mercer held UNA to just 97 yards in the second half.

Ole Miss is 94-29-5 (.754) in season-opening games. The Rebels have taken 21 of their last 26. Saturday will be just the third home opener for the Rebels in the last six years.

“We’re going have our hands full and have to prepare really well,” now-fourth-year head coach Lane Kiffin said this week. Kiffin is 7-4 in season openers. “Have to be ready to play in a lot of heat as well, have to be ready to handle what all comes with that and have to be prepared to play through that.

“I really like where they are as a team as far as the way that they work (and) how they prepare. I don’t know how they’re going to play for sure, but I do like that part of them so far.”

Let’s take a closer look at the matchup, with game notes provided by Ole Miss Athletics.

OLE MISS HEAD COACH LANE KIFFIN

Kiffin is in his fourth season at Ole Miss and has led the Rebels to three consecutive postseasons. Kiffin has posted an all-time record of 84-47 in 11 years at the NCAA level, including a 23-13 mark at Ole Miss.

The Rebel offense last season once again ranked amongst the best in the nation in multiple categories. Ole Miss was No. 3 nationally in rushing offense (256.6) and No. 8 in total offense (496.4). Now-sophomore running back Quinshon Judkins set the Ole Miss single-season records for both rushing yards (1,567) and rushing touchdowns (16).

Kiffin guided the Rebels to a 10-3 record in 2021 — the first 10-win regular season in school history. The Rebels finished ranked No. 11 in both the AP and AFCA Coaches Poll, which was their highest final ranking since 2016. Ole Miss was Top 20 in the FBS in nine different offensive categories in Kiffn’s first season in 2020. The Rebels was No. 3 team in total offense and shattered the school record with 555.5 yards per game.

Kiffin in December of 2016 took over an FAU program that had won a total of nine combined games over the previous three seasons. Kiffin led the Owls to two conference titles and two 10-win seasons. His other previous head coaching stops include USC, Tennessee and the NFL’s now-Las Vegas Raiders.

Kiffin played quarterback at Fresno State for three seasons (1994-96). He began his coaching career as a student assistant at Fresno under Pat Hill in 1997 and 1998. 

RELATED: Lane Kiffin believes the 2023 Rebels are the deepest team he’s had at Ole Miss

MERCER HEAD COACH DREW CRONIC

Drew Cronic is entering his fourth season with the Bears and eighth total as a head coach. He holds a 57-19 overall career record, including a 20-13 record at Mercer.

Cronic has been the architect behind an offensive revolution for Mercer over the last three seasons. The Bears under Cronic have averaged nearly 405 yards and 31.3 points per game, including 38.2 points per game last season. They also averaged more than 470 yards of total offense. Mercer finished in the Top 25 in the nation in 10 offensive statistical categories. Cronic helped the Bears to a program-best seven wins against NCAA Division I schools.

Cronic came to Mercer after two seasons at Lenoir-Rhyne, where he led an impressive program turnaround. The Bears were 3-8 in 2017. They were a combined 25-3 in two years under Cronic.

Cronic was named the AFCA National Coach of the Year in 2018. He took Mercer to a school-record 13 wins in 2019. The Bears reached the NCAA Quarterfinals for the second straight season.

BEARS SCOUTING REPORT

Mercer — the No. 20 team in the FCS last week — is off to a 1-0 start thanks, in part, to a stifling defense that shut down UNA and a 73-yard, one-touchdown performance from transfer running back Micah Bell. Mercer quarterback Carter Peevy was 12 for 17 for 115 yards and one passing touchdown.

The Bears returns 19 starters from a 7-4 team in 2022. Ten of those starters are on defense. Headling the group is linebacker Isaac Dowling. Dowling is a member of the Buck Buchanan Award preseason watch list and was named the MVP of the FCS Kickoff Classic last week. Dowling, in the game, had 10 tackles, 1.5 TFL and a half sack.

Mercer also features accomplished wide receivers Devron Harper and Ty James. Both were named to watch lists for the Senior Bowl and Walter Payton Award. The latter is the FCS equivalent to the Heisman Trophy.

RELATED: What Mercer head coach Drew Cronic said about facing Ole Miss

GEORGIA REBELS

Ole Miss rosters 20 players produced by the state of Georgia: CB AJ Brown (Cordele), S Nick Cull (Donalsonville), LB Jack Damron (Buford), CB Nyseer Fullwood-Theodore (Atlanta), RB Jam Griffin (Rome), DE Jared Ivey (Suwanee), OL Jeremy James (Cumming), S Zach Johansen (Suwanee), WR Cayden Lee (Kennesaw), LB Skielar Mann (Fort Valley), OL Reece McIntyre (Buford), LB Monty Montgomery (Norcross), OL Cedrick Nicely (Gainesville), P Charlie Pollock (Marietta), RB Ali Scott (Powder Springs), TE Wyatt Smalley (Milton), DT Akelo Stone (Savannah), LB Mark Trigg Jr. (Roswell), WR Dayton Wade (Atlanta) and S Demarko Williams (Atlanta).

YEAR FOUR OF THE KIFFIN ERA

In three seasons under Kiffin, the Rebels have set numerous records and clawed their way into the upper echelon of college football in a number of categories.

Ole Miss earned three consecutive bowl bids for the first time since 2012-14. The Rebels reached the 2021 Outback Bowl, the 2022 Sugar Bowl and the 2022 Texas Bowl.

Kiffin has churned out 12 Ole Miss NFL Draft picks so far and also fashioned Ole Miss’ recruiting success almost exlusively in his image. Kiffin, known in some corners of college football as the ‘Portal King,’ has notched three consecutive Top 25 recruiting classes, according to On3, and two consecutive Top 6 transfer classes, according to 247Sports.

Ole Miss has been a force in the classroom, too. The Rebels finished in the Top 3 for FBS schools in multi-year APR in each of the last two releases from the NCAA.

Kiffin (23-13) is the second-fastest Ole Miss head coach to break the 20-win plateau. Harry Mehre is the all-time leader. He went 20-4 in 24 games. Kiffin produced a 20-8 record in 28 games.

LISTEN: At long last, game week has arrived for Ole Miss football

HIGH-FLYING OFFENSE

The Ole Miss offense has been among the most prolific in the sport the last three years.

The Rebels are second in yards per game (511.3) since 2020 (36 games). They’re third in total yards since 2020 (18,408 yards). Ole Miss and Ohio State as the only Power 5 teams with both a Top 10 passing season (2020; No. 7) and a Top 10 rushing season (2022; No. 3) since 2020.

RACKING UP THE YARDS

Kiffin’s dynamic Ole Miss offenses have single-handedly dismantled Rebel record books.

The Kiffin-led Rebels have three of the Top 5 offensive seasons in school history since 2020 — the year Ole Miss finished ranked No. 3 nationally in total offense. Ole Miss recorded a school-record 555.5 yards per game (5,555 yards).

The Rebels a year later was fifth in the nation with 492.5 yards per game (6,402 yards). Last season Ole Miss broke into the Top 5 again. The Rebels notched their fourth-best season ever (496.4 yards per game/6,453 yards.

Ole Miss was No. 7 in FBS in passing in 2020 (344.9 ypg) and No. 12 in rushing (217.6 ypg) in 2021. The Rebels, of course, set the single-season school record for rushing 3,336 yards (256.6) and also led the SEC and ranked No. 3 in the FBS behind only the service academies.

Ole Miss has produced 20 games at least 600 yards of total offense under Kiffin. The Rebels had pulled off that feat just 16 times since Ole Miss football began in 1893. Kiffin’s Rebels own three of the five total 700-yard games in Ole Miss history.

RELATED: Ole Miss’ Quinshon Judkins views himself as ‘the best running back’ in college football

RECORDS BROKEN

Ole Miss’ last season set, tied or broke nine total school rushing records. Two of those records had stood for more than 60 years — Kayo Dottley’s 1949 single-season rushing yards record (1,312) and the 1957 team’s total rushing yards (3,063).

1. Team 1st Downs Rushing (176)
2. Team Rushing Attempts (614)
3. Team Rushing Yards (3,336)
4. Team Rushing Touchdowns (33)
5. Individual Rushing Attempts (Quinshon Judkins, 274)
6. Individual Rushing Yards (Quinshon Judkins, 1,567)
7. Individual Rushing Touchdowns (Quinshon Judkins, 16)
8. Individual 100-Yard Rushing Games (Quinshon Judkins, 8)
9. Individual Multi-Rushing TD Games (Quinshon Judkins, 6)

HOME SWEET HOME

Ole Miss owns an all-time record of 292-115-8 (.713) at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Ole Miss in three Kiffin seasons has gone produced a 14-5 home record, including a 14-game home winning streak (November 14, 2020 to October 15, 2022). The streak was the longest in Oxford since the Rebels won 21 straight games from November 1, 1952 to November 7, 1959.

Including a tie to LSU in 1960, the Rebels went unbeaten over 34 games and 12 years (1952-64). Ole Miss finished 2021 with a perfect 7-0 home record. Ole Miss had last gone without a home loss in 1992. It was the first time in history, however, that Ole miss won seven on-campus games within a single season.

NEW FACES

Nearly half (59, 46.1 percent) of Ole Miss’ roster this season is new. Nearly a quarter of those players (31, 24.2 percent) are new transfers from the past spring and summer. Twenty-eight (21.9 percent) are freshmen. Combined with previous seasons, 52 total current Rebels (40.6 percent) are transfers.

RETURNING STRENGTH

Ole Miss returns 66.1 percent of all its total snaps from 2022, as well as 70.3 percent of its rushing attack and 95.8 percent of its passing game. The Ole Miss offensive line has back 77.8 percent of all offensive line snaps from last season.

However, Ole Miss returns only 35.9 percent of its receiving output following the departures of Jonathan Mingo and Malik Heath to the NFL. The pair combined for 111 catches, 1,832 yards and 10 touchdowns last season.

Thirty-three of the 59 newcomers are defensive players. Fifteen are defensive backs. Five are safeties with a combined 192 games played, 133 games started, 541 total tackles, 17 interceptions, 82 passes defended and eight forced fumbles.