‘That’s why you come to Ole Miss’: Jaxson Dart and his playmakers terrorized Vanderbilt Saturday

Jaxson Dart and his Ole Miss teammates desperately wanted Jonathan Mingo to make history Saturday at Vanderbilt.

The Rebel coaches did, too.

So, late in a 52-28 blowout, Ole Miss ran play after play with an RPO (run-pass option) tag to try and make it happen. Ultimately, Mingo, the junior Rebel receiver, did break Elijah Moore’s single-game program record for receiving yards. 

He ended up with 247 — aided by a pair of 70-plus-yard touchdown connections with Dart.

“It was good to finally be able to get it to him in the red zone and for him to break it,” Dart said.

No. 9 Ole Miss terrorized Vanderbilt through the air.

Dart had his best game as a Rebel by a mile, finishing 25 for 32 for three touchdowns and a career-high 448 yards. The output is tied for fifth all-time at Ole Miss with Jordan Ta’amu (Southern Illinois, 2018).

But, to be fair, not all was well for a while.

Ole Miss faced a halftime deficit (20-17) for the first time all season. Dart threw two ugly interceptions, and the Rebels stalled out in the red zone in each of their first two drives.

However, Dart — making his ninth career start, and sixth at Ole Miss — and the offense outscored Vanderbilt, 42-9, from the second quarter’s one-minute mark onward.

Heck, even when things were going poorly, Dart, in the first half alone, managed to match his previous season-high for passing yards (213).

“There was no stress or anything like that,” Dart said. “That score right before half gave us some momentum. All the guys knew if we took care of the things we needed to take care of and play our football things were going to play out. 

“We shot ourselves in the foot in the first half a few times. Sometimes that just happens and you face adversity in a game. For us, we were just focused on coming out, big second half and having a big response.”

KIFFIN: Ole Miss “should have played better” at Vanderbilt, but “good second half” something to build on

In the end, Dart finished with a trio of career-long passes and a win.

Two went to Mingo (72 and 71), while Jordan Watkins — who, like Dart, was an off-season Ole Miss transfer addition — had one (61). Dart’s previous career-long was his 51-yarder in the Rebels’ September win over Central Arkansas.

Ole Miss improved to 6-0 (2-0 SEC) on the season, while Vanderbilt dropped to 3-3 (0-2).

“I feel like this was one of the first games you were able to see a lot of the guys in space and see them run,” Dart said. “For me, if you can just throw a five-yard ball or something like that and watch them take it 70 yards, it’s really easy.”

Somewhat lost in the Mingo heroics was the breakout performance of Watkins, who had career-highs in receiving yards (117) and receptions (7).

He also tied his career-high in receiving touchdowns (1), and the 61-yarder was the second-longest of his career. Watkins had a 76-yard catch at NC State while with Louisville last season.

“That’s why you come here, that’s why you come to Ole Miss,” Dart said. “You have great players around you, who all you have to do is get them the ball and let them go make a play.”

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Here’s more of what Dart had to say afterwards: 

On Lane Kiffin saying the team drew up some plays up at halftime that ended up working: “The first long one in the second half. Kind of like a crack-go play because we were running outside zone with a QB counter off of it. Set that one up real nicely. It’s fun to have one-play drives. 

“(Mingo’s) second touchdown. We practiced it this week. First time we run it in a game and it works like that. It’s always fun when you have coaches who are just so intelligent, and being able to dial things up like that makes it easy.”

On the potential of this Ole Miss team: “I think you guys see it every game. We have spurts where it just looks like we’re unstoppable. We have to be able to find that and find that rhythm and that consistency every game. There’s no limit to what we can achieve this year.”

On the Ole Miss touchdown drive at the end of the first half: “We do it every week in practice. It’s nothing different. We have so many great playmakers. When you’re able to get a completion for 10 yards or something like that and then the defense gets a little greedy and tries to shut it down, we can hit them up top. We had a lot of confidence going into it that that we were going to score.”