2022 Rebel Football Brings Recruits, Transfers, and a Portal King

Is Lane Kiffin the Billy Beane of College Football?

OXFORD, Miss. — In December 2019, Lane Kiffin walked onto the stage in The Pavilion and announced he had accepted the job as head coach of Ole Miss football. He inherited a team that had just finished 4-8. Add the pandemic of 2020 to the mix, and one wonders how Coach Kiffin has accomplished so much in such a short amount of time.

The 2021 football season was an exciting one for Ole Miss fans. Led by quarterback Matt Corral, the Rebels finished 10-3 and were back in serious conversations about the team’s place in the SEC West.

Even with the Sugar Bowl loss to Baylor, Ole Miss headed into the recruiting season with a gleam in the eye about what “The Portal King,” as Kiffin became known, would accomplish in the off-season.

Although he lost both his offensive and defensive coordinators, the strength and conditioning coach, and some other key members of his staff, Kiffin maintained a grasp on recruiting and found ways to reel players in to visit Oxford. 

From recruiting trips with exceptional chauffeurs to daily tweets from a dog named Juice, football recruits from everywhere came to see what the world of Ole Miss football is all about. Recruits committed, and Ole Miss dominated the portal.

The 2022 team came together and went to work, and fans will see that hard work play out over the course of a season that begins with a visit from the Troy Trojans on September 3rd.

Analytics continue to play a part in Kiffin’s coaching plan, and with his effective use of the transfer portal, this should be an exciting year for Rebel football. Could we be witnessing the college football version of Billy Beane, the general manager and mastermind of the Oakland A’s who was portrayed in Moneyball?

Can analytics and a transfer portal of talented athletes create the opportunity to recruit a dream team? Time will tell.

Despite the adversity Coach Kiffin faced in his first weeks and months at Ole Miss, he has found a way to utilize the tools at his disposal to assemble a cast of coaches and players who are on a mission to keep Ole Miss in SEC West title contention.  

Kiffin’s mindset of patience — and not simply settling for any quick fix — has proven to be a wise choice thus far. His ability to innovatively create solutions to problems other coaches would struggle with makes Rebel fans hopeful about the season ahead.

The 2022 football season begins with “sharks in the water” and receivers ready to “score from far.” With support from a fan base that believes in their coaches and team, it will be a “Party in the Sip!”  Some of these players, including transfer QB Jaxson Dart, have never been to an SEC game. Let’s show them what it’s like! 

Tomorrow is game day! Rebel fans, are you ready?

(Feature image credit: Ole Miss Athletics)