Ole Miss DL Jared Ivey focused on the Rebels, not No. 1 Georgia: ‘I just want to keep it about my teammates and my coaches and who’s going into battle with me’
OXFORD, Miss. — Jared Ivey is 100 percent Ole Miss Rebel, but he still has a bit of his home state of Georgia in his heart. He gets to show that heart Saturday.
Ivey grew up just north of Atlanta, played high school football in a talent-rich area and signed out of high school with Georgia Tech. In fact, he was named as one of Tech’s top 30 signees of all time.
Since transferring to Ole Miss, Ivey has played against Georgia schools three times. He has beaten his former Yellow Jackets’ team twice and started this year with a win over Mercer. This week, Ivey gets a shot at the top dog in the Peach State as Ole Miss travels to Athens to take on Georgia.
Ivey might be happy about the game, but when he arrived in Oxford, he had no idea where he would be this Saturday.
“I didn’t know we had UGA on the schedule until this offseason,” Ivey said Monday after practice.
“But I was excited when I found out the news. I know (the crowd’s) going to be real deep, a lot of family members and coaches coming to that game, but like I say, I just want to keep it about my teammates and my coaches and who’s going into battle with me. That’s when you get lost man, you start thinking about all this other stuff you know, at the end of day my hand goes in the dirt…”
Jared Ivey on playing Georgia
Growing up so near to Athens, Ivey has always known about Georgia’s lineage, including recent history when the Bulldogs have won the last two national titles and continue to stockpile talent. He still likes what he sees on the Ole Miss roster before heading into the top-ten matchup in Sanford Stadium.
“You know they’re a big recruiting program and they’ve got dudes everywhere and we’re not going to be shy about that,” Ivey said.
“But we’ve got them too, and we feel very confident in this group and in our preparation to be able to go in there and handle what they give us. Yes, they have a lot of good players but we feel like we can get at them in those one-on-one matchups.“
Jared Ivey
There is a lot on the line in this game. Should Georgia win, it has a clear path to the SEC title game. A loss against Ole Miss makes it harder for the Bulldogs and could give Ole Miss a shot at an 11-1 regular-season record. That could provide the Rebels a way into the College Football Playoff. Coach Lane Kiffin said Monday, however, his team does not talk about the playoffs, but out of his earshot, perhaps some Rebels are thinking about what this game means.
“Coach (Pete) Golding said this this morning, ‘Where else would you want to be besides playing a game in November where you can control your own destiny?’ We’re very thankful to be in a position like that and very excited to get out here and compete against a great team. That’s what you come to the SEC for. We’re just taking it one week at a time. We’re keeping all the playoff talk on the back burner. It sounds like rat poison to me but we’re just focused on Georgia this week.”
Jared Ivey
Concentrating on Georgia this week is what the Rebels are doing during preparations. According to Ivey, this week is no different than week one, week five or on an off week.
“That’s not the way we run this program and that’s not the way we go about things in this program. I feel like we’re a group full of week-to-week guys. Every week is the biggest week. Whoever we’re playing is the biggest opponent. Every week is the biggest game. We don’t feel like it’s because of the opponent. We feel like it’s because of us and so we try to keep that mindset and take that mindset into every single week, keep the same preparation no matter who the opponent is. The opponent could be nobody and we’re practicing just as hard as we are during a week playing as we are on a bye (week).”
Jared Ivey
Still that bit of home-state pride is with Ivey. It shows up in the locker room when his teammates from other talent-rich states like Florida or Texas begin to discuss their backgrounds.
“I feel we get into that argument a lot in the locker room about who’s got the best talent,” Ivey said. “And for some reason, I feel like Georgia always wins. I don’t know, I could be biased, I don’t know, but Georgia is an uber-talented state, Gwinnett is an uber-talented county so I’m really thankful to be from there and grow up playing around guys like that, so shout out to the guys from Georgia around the country doing their thing.”
Nothing would make a Georgia native like Ivey feel more proud than a win over the Bulldogs Saturday.
The game is set to kick off at 6 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN.
Steve Barnes
Steve Barnes joins The Rebel Walk staff as a senior writer and brings a trifecta of journalistic experience. As a writer, he has covered college sports for Rivals.com, Football.com and SaturdayDownSouth.com as well as served as a beat writer for various traditional newspapers.
He has been a broadcaster for arena football and several national tournament events for the National Junior College Athletic Association as well as hosting various shows on radio.
A former sports information director at Albany (Ga.) State University and an assistant at Troy and West Florida, he has helped host many NCAA conference, regional and national events, including serving five years on the media committee of the NCAA Division II World Series.
Barnes, a native of Pensacola, Fla., attended Ole Miss in 1983-84, where his first journalism teacher was David Kellum. The duo has come a long way since that time.
He will bring a proven journalistic track record, along with a knack for finding the out-of-the-ordinary story angles to The Rebel Walk.
Barnes continues to reside in Pensacola a mere ten minutes from the beach because he does have taste and a brain.
