Jaxson Dart Played Major Role in Recruiting Teammates to Return to Ole Miss for ‘Last Dance:’ “We Want to Continue to Make a Legacy”
OXFORD, Miss. — LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne has etched herself in social media as an influencer. She might want to look into the rearview mirror as Jaxson Dart is gaining on her.
Although the Lady Tiger is hawking products across all mediums, the Ole Miss quarterback has a more specialized target. Dart is helping Ole Miss collect football players to stack on the Rebels’ roster this fall.
After leading Ole Miss to the first 11-win season in school history, he started recruiting almost as soon as he announced he was coming back to Oxford for his senior year.
Soon after the 38-25 win over Penn State in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Dart took off his helmet and put on his salesman’s hat.
It did not take long for Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin to notice Dart’s methods.
“He recruited like was coming back and it helped put together this team. So I don’t know I’ve seen over time a player actively recruit more to put together a team on both sides of the ball than Jaxson did this offseason. It says a lot about him, says a lot about him as a leader and I’ve even said someday as potentially a head coach, if he wants to be, because he has really special qualities and one of them is to get people to follow him.”
Head coach Lane Kiffin
High praise for Jaxson Dart’s leadership 👏@Lane_Kiffin | #HottyToddy pic.twitter.com/f3Xmx9TRp9
— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) March 19, 2024
Dart’s on-field confidence has been evident to Ole Miss fans for two seasons, but he is just as confident discussing 2024 with new and existing teammates.
“I’d say I’m pretty good at it,” Dart said.
“But I think the big thing for me is, how I see it, has nothing to do with what I have to say to somebody. Our product was on display this whole past season and I think it just comes down to people wanting to be a part of what we’re building here. And when you have that, you know it’s pretty easy to talk to somebody and be like ‘why wouldn’t you come here? Why wouldn’t you be a part of this, why wouldn’t you want to go make history?’”
Jaxson Dart
According to Dart, he looked at the process as a salesman. One that would make any salesman jealous because he knows he has a great product to offer.
“I just really looked at it as the excitement surrounding the program,” Dart said.
“
We had just come off of something that had never been done in school history and I saw the little pieces that had the potential for coming back, and I think the more and more conversations we had as players, we saw the potential of what we could do and what the future looked like here. I think all in all, when it’s said and done, we just felt as a team with how many returners we had back that is going to be the best option for us to leave a legacy here. We want to continue to make a legacy and to do something that people will always remember and something we can be really proud of. So I’m just really happy that I made that decision (to come back) and I’m really happy for the pieces and the guys who came back to follow.“
Jaxson Dart
Kiffin believes Dart had an incredible influence on getting several returning players to come back for the 2024 season.
“I think a number of guys would say, especially offensively, I think the receivers — like Juice Wells — would tell you that. I think not just portal guys, but even the guys who came back like Tre (Harris), like (Caden) Prieskorn,” Kiffin said. “I think they would tell you that he recruited them really well too.”
Yet Dart did not just stay on the offensive side of the ball. Defensive end Jared Ivey said his quarterback also worked on him about coming back for a chance to play in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
“Yeah he was in my ear a little bit about coming back, as was everybody else. I wanted to come back and run it back with the guys so Dart was definitely a part of that.”
Jared Ivey
Dart’s major is General Business, but should he change it to marketing, the world had better look out for a superstar.
Ole Miss is currently in spring drills and they will culminate in the Grove Bowl April 13.
(Feature image credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports)
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.
