Lane Kiffin wants more from the Ole Miss ground game against MTSU
Ole Miss football will go for its 23rd win in its last 25 games inside Vaught-Hemingway Stadium Saturday against Middle Tennessee State.
The Rebels and Blue Raiders kick off at 3:15 p.m. CT on SEC Network. The teams have only met one other time in history — in 2001, a 45-17 Ole Miss win.
“We’re in the middle of a tough week of practice,” Kiffin said on the SEC teleconference call on Wednesday. “We really didn’t have many high play counts from last week’s game.
“We’ve been practicing really hard. Ready for a really good team in Middle Tennessee State. We’ve played them before. They always play really hard.
“We’ll have our hands full.”
Kiffin made a pitch for another sold-out crowd. The Rebels against Furman had 66,105 in the stands, the third-highest recorded attendance in program history.
“Hopefully we have a really big crowd,” Kiffin said. “Hopefully the whole game will be like our student section — full, excited and creating a home-field advantage.
“We just have to go 1-0 this week. It doesn’t matter what happened a year ago or even a week ago. It was a similar margin of a win (in the 2023 opener). We put up huge numbers, then went to Tulane and really struggled.”
Ivey League: Raymond Collins is ready to celebrate for the Ole Miss defense
Kiffin hopes to see more from the Ole Miss ground game.
The Rebels had 243 yards on 37 attempts (6.6 yards per carry) against the Paladins. Nearly 30 percent of their yards, though, came on two runs and with the game well out of reach. Former walk-on Matt Jones broke free for a 46-yarder and scored twice.
“It’s more of a challenge this week,” Kiffin said. “We really want to establish the run in this game. We were really pass-oriented as (Furman) went on.”
Austin Simmons, not Walker Howard, took over for third-year starting quarterback Jaxson Dart for the second half against Furman.
Ole Miss led 52-0 and Dart had completed 22 of 27 passes for 418 yards and six total touchdowns (five passing). Simmons, a redshirt freshman, threw a 35-yard touchdown to Cayden Lee on his first career pass attempt. Lee is a second-year Rebel wide receiver.
WATCH: Top transfer Walter Nolen didn’t disappoint in his Ole Miss debut
Simmons is just 19 and reclassified up two classes from 2025 to join Ole Miss last fall.
He was 7 for 16 for 111 yards and the touchdown against Furman.
“It felt so surreal,” Simmons said this week. “It felt like a dream (and) reliving my first high school touchdown pass. A whole lot of emotions. It just felt great.”
Simmons was one of 26 new Rebels to debut on Saturday.
Another was Raymond Collins, today’s (September 4, 2024) guest on the Ole Miss Spirit’s ‘Ivey League’ podcast.
Walter Nolen, as expected, started and dominated the snap share at three-tech. His run-defense grade (75.3) was the third-highest on the team.
Nolen was the No. 2 overall transfer in On3’s portal rankings. He’s a transfer defense tackle from Texas A&M and headlined an Ole Miss transfer class ranked No. 3 nationally.
“I feel like I’m still a little kid when it comes to the game,” Nolen said this week. “I’m just excited to be out there and play.”
