Column | After dominating Peach Bowl win, Ole Miss football poised for even greater things
OXFORD, Miss. — In many respects, the 2023 Ole Miss Rebels experienced a comeback year and in the process, constructed a record-breaking, historic season that was as gratifying as any in Oxford in sixty-plus years.
Entering their New Year’s Six Peach Bowl matchup against tenth-ranked Penn State, both teams came into Atlanta with sparkling 10-2 records and no history of having met in the past. Their only losses had occurred against the championship finalists from each of their respective leagues.
The Vegas oddsmakers studied the matchup and installed Penn State as a 3.5-point favorite. Now, who knows what the exact rationale is behind setting a line for a big-time bowl game, or even the playoffs for that matter, but those in the know apparently were more enamored with Penn State’s résumé than that of the Rebels.
Regardless, the designation of a favorite is epic bulletin board material in the minds of the underdog program’s participants, and a form of disrespect that can charge up a team. Then, when Penn State social media began to infer that the only thing between the Nittany Lions and a Peach Bowl victory was a bus ride, receipts were definitely being kept.
From all indications, Penn State had extremely strong stats defensively, having surrendered the fewest yards per game this season in the entire country. They were also first in fourth-quarter scoring. That’s quite the combo and this team and its fan base obviously believed their press clippings.
Yet, the Big Ten in 2023 was a quarterback-poor conference. By bowl season, Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy was the only B1G QB with any real stature who was still standing.
Ohio State’s Kyle McCord had already jumped ship in Columbus and his backup, Lincoln Kienholz, barely broke a 20 on the QBR scale against Missouri.
This game was a reminder that great quarterbacks can make their coaches look great, and that an average quarterback can make his coach a mirrored image.
Buckeyes coach Ryan Day looked very average and somewhat clueless that evening in the Cotton Bowl. FSU’s Mike Norvell also knows what backup quarterbacks can do to your coaching legacy all too well.
And with the Ole Miss defense having already faced the likes of Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels, SEC champion QB Jalen Milroe, and SEC runner-up Carson Beck, the Penn State passing game with its slow-mo pace just wasn’t one that could measure up with what the Rebs had prepared for all season.
In open space, sure-tackling is an absolute must. You miss one of those and you don’t get it back, no second chance. There’s tremendous pressure in today’s college secondaries.
Ole Miss junior safety Trey Washington led the team this season with 83 tackles, 45 of them solo, and had three interceptions. Safeties John Saunders and Daijahn Anthony combined for 126 tackles, while the linebacker trio of Ashanti Cistrunk, Jeremiah Jean-Baptiste and Khari Coleman combined for 173 total tackles.
Among the big men in the gaps, Jared Ivey and Cedrick Johnson led the team with 5.5 sacks each and Ivey also had two fumble recoveries. JJ Pegues was in on 42 tackles and had 3.5 sacks this season.
Meanwhile, the Rebels were relatively healthy offensively, although quarterback Jaxson Dart took a lower body hit very early in the Peach Bowl. To say he shook it off would be an understatement. After instant-replay reversed on-field calls of an early interception and a lost fumble, Dart was as sharp and effective as we’ve seen him in his entire career.
Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart in the Peach Bowl:
🔷 25/40
🔷 379 YDS
🔷 4 Total TDs
🔷 0 INTs pic.twitter.com/l17rplAMwa— PFF College (@PFF_College) December 30, 2023
Outshining and outclassing his Penn State counterpart by tangible leaps and bounds, Dart exhibited the quarterbacking acumen that Coach Kiffin has been working towards since his arrival from Southern Cal.
After a game-opening three-and-out, the Rebels scored two touchdowns and kicked two field goals on their next four possessions. They followed that up with a field goal and a touchdown the first two times they touched the ball in the third quarter. Next, they held the best fourth-quarter-scoring team In the country to seven points in that final stanza. An early battle of two stout outfits trading haymakers had given way to the style and finesse of the Ole Miss offensive attack and a defense that wasn’t content to sit in the back seat.
Hometown kid 😤@JaxsonDart ➡️ @__vierr
📺 ESPN pic.twitter.com/8IKfzK3tkc— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) December 30, 2023
While Michigan had pounded the Nittany Lions on the ground 32 consecutive times in the second half of their Big Ten showdown, the Rebels didn’t make as much as a single handoff or pitchout until their ninth play from scrimmage.
Penn State’s version of the famed “Steel Curtain” was completely fabricated, lacerated through the air and then pummeled into submission by a powerful ground attack led by the big, fresh bodies up front.
Clean pockets were consistently the name of the game and Dart used them to his advantage time after time with uncanny accuracy. Every window was seemingly that of a showroom floor for the Rebel QB on this day. The Rebels won 38-25, the same winning margin they’d had all season and not very far off their season averages of 35 scored and 22 allowed.
The 2023 Bowl Season was essentially a Big Ten/SEC Challenge. Six games matched teams from the two conferences, including Ole Miss vs Penn State, LSU vs Wisconsin, Tennessee vs Iowa, and Missouri vs Ohio State — all SEC wins. The two losses were suffered by a favored Auburn team to Maryland and, of course, Alabama vs eventual national champion Michigan in the national semifinal.
The 2023 season is the third straight that Ole Miss has amassed over 6,000 yards in total offense. In the Covid year of 2020, the Rebels gained 555.5 yards per game in their 10 games — an average that would’ve surpassed 6,000 yards in a full season, as well.
The Rebels had led the league in rushing twice in Kiffin’s previous three seasons, but 2023 was the first that the Rebels didn’t average at least 200 rushing yards per game. The Rebs made up for it in the passing game, however, averaging 45 more yards per game through the air than they’d accumulated in 2022.
Former star running back Quinshon Judkins, who has since transferred to Ohio State, gained 400 fewer yards on the ground in 2023 than the previous year — a 26% decrease in production — on effectively the same number of carries. Q’s average dipped from 5.7 yards per carry to 4.3.
RB2 Ulysses Bentley IV, meanwhile, didn’t get the number of touches that Zach Evans did in 2022, but his average per carry was a very impressive 5.7 yards on 95 carries. The description of Bentley that was verbalized during the Peach Bowl broadcast by an ESPN announcer was, “He’s got more juice…than Judkins.”
Ole Miss RB Ulysses Bentley IV set for 2024 return to the Rebels. Hotty Toddy! https://t.co/zR03ZvgHfa
— The Rebel Walk (@TheRebelWalk) January 8, 2024
The Rebels also, oh by the way, won 11 games for the first time in program history.
Statistically, the Rebels finished third to LSU and Georgia in points scored, total offense, and passing yardage this season. It’s the second time under Kiffin that the Rebels have finished among the Top 3 SEC teams in these three categories, and the first time since 2020.
By game time in Atlanta, the Rebels had been further underestimated by the betting public to the tune of 6-point underdogs, perhaps a result of the Big Ten bias at work. After all, this IS Penn State!
But it was the Rebels who took control, and due primarily to their quarterback’s pin-point passing, strategic imagination, expertly-executed pass routes, solid protection, and an ever-adapting defense, the drama was essentially past-tense by midway through the third quarter. The party had already begun. This was more of a reckoning than an upset.
➕✌️@JaxsonDart ➡️ @cpkorn12 pic.twitter.com/nIysRfUKG6
— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) December 30, 2023
Jaxson Dart is not a finished product quite yet, but he did finish atop all SEC quarterbacks in Bowl Season QBR with a very impressive 92.9 score. PFF ranks him second among all returning FBS quarterbacks in their rating system, and for good reason.
Highest graded Quarterbacks this season pic.twitter.com/ms0Yrkdcrm
— PFF College (@PFF_College) January 10, 2024
Only five of his 358 pass attempts this season were intercepted and he had a completion percentage of 65.1.
With all of the talented holdovers and several outstanding additions to this increasingly robust program, expectations will continue to rise as next season approaches, and well they should. Ole Miss currently has the No. 1-ranked transfer portal class in the country, with the likes of Walter Nolen, Princely Umanmielen, Juice Wells and others headed to Oxford. (Click here for the Ole Miss Transfer Portal Tracker.)
In 2024, it’s Dart’s team and it very well could be Dart’s year. He’s already listed in the Top 10 of the Heisman odds going in. Ole Miss will likely open as a Top 5 team in the wire service rankings. With the 12-team playoffs coming next season, the Rebs are now poised for even greater things to be coming their way; they’re meant to be here.
David Walker
David is the consummate true-freshman quarterback, first pioneering the position only a year after college freshmen were given varsity eligibility by the NCAA in 1972. In 1973, the left-handed all-state gunslinger from Sulphur, Louisiana started for the Texas A&M Aggies and earned the All-Southwest Conference Freshman of the Year award as selected by the league’s coaches. David is the first college quarterback ever awarded Freshman of the Year in the NCAA. He was only 17, and still holds the NCAA record as the youngest starting quarterback in college football history. He wore No. 8 at A&M in honor of one of his football heroes, Archie Manning.
In becoming the winningest quarterback ever at A&M, David was converted from a dual-threat QB to a triple option trailblazer. The two-time team captain led three record-breaking offenses that changed the direction of football at A&M forever, establishing once and for all the winning tradition that the Aggies had so-long desired.
As a high school head coach in Houston in the late ‘80s, David stationed his quarterback in the shotgun formation, having him reading defenses and throwing hot routes at a time when such offensive schemes were frowned upon by traditional fans and coaches. One of his quarterbacks tossed 57 passes in a single game, which stood as the all-time Greater Houston Area record for many years.
As you can tell from his bona fides, David is extremely qualified as our expert on all things Quarterback at Ole Miss. Enjoy his exclusive analysis only here at The Rebel Walk!
