Lane Kiffin asked Tre Harris if he wanted to come to Ole Miss and be a first round talent: 'Hell Yeah'

When Tre Harris made the decision to enter the transfer portal and leave Louisiana Tech, Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin‘s pitch to him was a simple question.

There were the sit down meetings and even a dinner between Kiffin and Harris but it was one question during a phone call between the two that really sold Harris on the idea of joining the Rebels offense.

“I wanted to go somewhere where the style of offense was sorta similar and the air raid offense and coming here it’s pretty similar,” Harris said. “I wanted to go somewhere where they have an established quarterback. We definitely have one here in Jaxson Dart. I also wanted to go somehwere where they compete every single year.

“Whenever I called (Kiffin) he was like, ‘You want to come here and be a first round talent or what?’ I told him hell yeah.”

Harris could very well be on his way of making Kiffin’s question become a statement of fact. Every highlight-reel catch he makes only improves his NFL Draft stock and potential to play on Sundays, more than likely by next fall.

In his first eight games with Ole Miss Harris has become the leading receiver for and fourth best in the Southeastern Conference with 748 yards and seven touchdowns.

Becoming one of college football’s most prolific receivers has been a journey for Harris. In high school he was a quarterback but once he got to Louisiana Tech he was moved to wide receiver and the process began.

“It’s different. I will say that,” Harris said. “When I first started back at La Tech playing wide receiver it was challenging. A lot of days where that back was hurting from all that running. Had to get used to running a lot. Now that I’m here it’s not really challenging at all. I spent three years at Louisiana Tech playing receiver, perfecting my craft. Getting here just getting to continue to better my craft, get better as a receiver.”

There were other challenges Harris has overcome in his first year at Ole Miss, including an in-season injury.

After the first three plays of the game at Tulane Harris scored a touchdown but also suffered a leg injury that kept him out the rest of game. The injury also required surgery.

Harris was only out for the Georgia Tech game and then returned for a handful of plays against Alabama. In the five games since then Harris has recorded three 100-plus yard games, including his 213-yard day against Texas A&M last Saturday.

“It was more mentally challenging I would say (more) than anything,” Harris said of the injury. “You want to be out there with your teammates. You want to be out there and produce with your teammates just like everybody else is doing. Then you’re set back. The biggest thing that helped me was having faith in God and just keep trusting my teammates to do their job and just go out and trust in my trainers and just do what I need to do to get back.”

Now that Harris is back in the Ole Miss receivers room he is also back to making one-handed catches and earning himself SEC Co-Offensive Player of the week honors.

Those top play nominating catches are not something that came naturally to Harris. There is more effort put in behind the scenes than just showing up on game day and catching anything Dart throws at him.

“That’s not something you just go out and there and do,” Harris said. “A lot of JUG work with just catching one hand. Right hand and left hand. It just started paying off as you saw on Saturday.”