Lane Kiffin says he and QB Jaxson Dart share a certain trait: ‘We both are self-critical about ourselves and don’t need other people to get us motivated’
OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart has been the most vocal Jaxson Dart critic, and on Sunday his head coach Lane Kiffin explained how the trait of owning their mistakes and critically analyzing their own performance is one the coach and his player share.
“I think it’s a good thing and I think a lot of them don’t have that, a lot of people don’t, where they don’t own things. They’re so worried about defending things and I think Jaxson is great at that,” Kiffin said of his signal caller.
After the Rebels defeated Vanderbilt, 33-7, Dart came into the postgame media room and was critical of his own performance.
“I feel like guys executed at a very high level tonight. Honestly, it starts with me. I did not execute to my standard tonight, so I am pretty disappointed about that. A big shout out to our defense for playing the way they are playing. They fought hard tonight and got us the ball back which allowed us more opportunities to score. We definitely gotta clean stuff up.”
Jaxson Dart
On Sundays, Coach Kiffin holds an audio zoom with media to go over the prior day’s game and put it to bed before moving on to the next opponent. He was asked about Dart’s tendency to be critical about areas of his game that he feels need improvement.
“He’s realistic thinking, so he says it how it is. I like to think that I give him a good example of that. We are both pretty self-critical about ourselves and don’t need other people to get us motivated. I’ve seen that a lot in him. He’s hard on himself.”
Lane Kiffin on Jaxson Dart
Last season was Dart’s first at Ole Miss after transferring in from USC. He had a period of adjustment to Kiffin’s system but has made a jump in both his onfield skills and his leadership.
“He’s been great in that area (leadership), leading by example with how he works and how he prepares and how hard he plays, too. Seeing him playing banged up in a couple games and still trying to run and dive for first downs, it shows a lot.”
Lane Kiffin on Dart’s leadership
Against Vanderbilt, Dart finished 19-of-28 for 240 yards, one touchdown and one interception, not his best performance of the season.
But at the end of the day, the Rebels won the game — a point not lost on Kiffin.
“This was obviously a team ready to play, to start 26-0 in the first half, that’s a team ready to play, responding and playing with good energy and doing a lot of things right,” Kiffin said of his team’s performance against the Commodores.
“Now, obviously, I didn’t like the lack of scoring in the second half, which put the mood where it was at the end of the game,” Kiffin added. “Even though it may feel better to have a great second half and a bad first half, it’s much better really as you evaluate a team, to know that your team in what could’ve been a trap game, came out and performed really well.”
Both Kiffin and Dart, while pleased with where the Rebels sit right now at 7-1 overall, 4-1 in the SEC, also know there is much still to be done.
“The last month of the season is something that we can feel good about, but at the same time it’s something we can’t feel satisfied with. We all have to understand and remember the big reason we came here and that is to win a national championship.”
Jaxson Dart
Kiffin explained his and the team’s mentality about the win over Vanderbilt.
“I think it’s a good thing that we have a standard around here, that as you can tell…hey we won an SEC game by 26 points against a team that, no disrespect, beat us a couple of times a few of the years before we got here and beat Florida last year and Kentucky. When you beat a team by 26, and you’re still kind of disappointed in a lot of areas, it’s good standards to have.”
Lane Kiffin
Kiffin and Dart clearly share that trait of being the hardest on themselves, as each is the first to point out the shortcomings of their performance after any given game. But that’s how you improve; you recognize your own shortcomings and get to work to solve them.
Kiffin was asked about his team’s late-season collapse last year, after beginning the season 7-1, only to drop five of their last six.
“I’ve said before, I don’t think we handled that very well,” Kiffin said Sunday. “I think that Alabama loss, we let that keep beating us. (We had a) chance in that game to go to 8-1, 9-1, whatever it was. Kind of fell apart after that. Two years ago we lost to Alabama and seemed to play really well after that. Seems to be that we’re doing the same thing again this year, and I think that says a lot about the players, the resolve to overcome a bad game.”
That resolve to overcome begins at the top with a team’s leaders — and Kiffin and Dart are on the same page about the Rebels’ road ahead, starting with A&M Saturday in Vaught-Hemingway.
“This will be very challenging coming up this week against great players and a team that has given us challenges the last two years playing them. It’s a really big game,” Kiffin said.
Ole Miss and A&M kick off at 11:00 a.m. CT. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.
Evelyn Van Pelt
Evelyn has covered sports for over two decades, beginning her journalism career as a sports writer for a newspaper in Austin, Texas. She attended Texas A&M and majored in English. Evelyn’s love for Ole Miss began when her daughter Katie attended the university on a volleyball scholarship. Evelyn created the Rebel Walk in 2013 and has served as publisher and managing editor since its inception.
