Ole Miss center Caleb Warren ready to turn the page from Sugar Bowl performance as a "new season" begins

When the clock hit zero inside the Caesars Superdome on Jan. 1 it ended one of the worst performances by the Ole Miss offense last season.

Now, some of that was due to losing Matt Corral to an ankle injury early in the game after being on the wrong end of one of the 10 Baylor sacks and more was due to those 10 sacks and the Bears defensive line having its away with the Rebels offensive front.

Nearly three months later, the Rebels are ready to turn the page and there is a sense of new beginnings within the program due to so much change and fresh faces coming in.

Rebels offensive lineman Caleb Warren is one of those ready to start fresh as he also takes on a new challenge this spring.

“Always a good time to be back doing what we love to do,” Warren said. Warren is an exclusive NIL partner of the Ole Miss Spirit. He’s sponsored by Booneville Community Pharmacy. They can be reached at 662-728-1951.

“Everybody’s got high spirits on the first day but just kind of got almost kind a sense of a new team, kind of like a new season. It’s just really fun to be back out there.”

Warren has moved to center full time as part of the changes made to the offensive line. With that gives him a front row seat to one of the more interesting quarterback battles the Rebels have experienced in recent memory.

Jaxson Dart, Luke Altmyer and Kinkead Dent are starting the spring off on level playing field, vying for the starting job. Due to that, Warren is also in that spotlight by association.

“Both are really great kids. They work really hard,” Warren said of Altmyer and Dart. “I’m excited to see this quarterback battle between the two of them. They both got really, really good arms.”

Beyond getting the quarterback situation sorted out, getting the offensive line in shape is the main priority for Warren and the rest of that group.

The Bears dominated and had their way with the Rebels upfront all night during the Sugar Bowl. When Altmyer came in he was mostly running to try and save a broken play — similar to another former Rebel quarterback who spent his pro career doing the same inside that very building.

Head coach Lane Kiffin is very aware of how his team’s last performance on national television played out and even compared it to another game last season that was not the defense’s best effort when speaking to the media on Tuesday.

“I haven’t talked to you guys a lot really since the last game. And, that was a difficult game,” Kiffin said. “I felt we didn’t play very well at all on offense. As head coach I take responsibility for that, and it was embarrassing, it was an embarrassing performance and we did not give them any issues at all schematically. So, I don’t know that I‘ve been a part of 10 sacks before like that. So that was really discouraging, and the problem is it’s your last game, and you’ve got to live with that and don’t have another one to play seven days later, so that was difficult to go out that way.

“And, especially as you go back and watch the film of the game you really see how well we played on defense. You guys know about my tirade after the Arkansas game and our performance on defense, I mean this is right on that level, offensively. I mean that’s as bad a performance you can have and unfortunately in one of the biggest games in the history of the program. So, we’re moving forward.”

Gone from the offensive line room are Ben Brown and Orlando Umana. The former opted to leave for the NFL Draft and the latter exhausted his eligibility.

That leaves veterans in Warren, Nick Broeker and Jeremy James along with transfer Mason Brooks. Broeker is shifting to left guard while James moves to left tackle. Warren anchors the middle of the line at center while Brooks will on the right and paired with either Eli Ackor, Cedric Melton or Jayden Williams.

“We got a lot of new guys playing new positions, so we’ve just got to nail down our techniques, fundamentals and stuff like that,” Warren said. “Let everybody get comfortable in their new positions. … I played center a couple weeks last season. I liked it then and I like it now.”