Lane Kiffin knows Rebels’ 2024 roster is strong, but says it takes more than that to win
OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss won a school-record 11 football games last season. But as coach Lane Kiffin would say, “That was last year.”
The Rebels are currently preparing for the 2024 season and they are doing it with a bevy of new players. Ole Miss signed players through the portal from the Power Five, Group of Five, junior college and even had some high school players enroll early at the University to take advantage of spring drills.
Advantage is a pun in that last sentence because no player has an advantage over any other in the spring. To Kiffin, they are all taking to the practice field with a clean slate.
“I don’t care who plays, where they’re from, what year. We’re going to play the best players. I feel really good when we win, I feel really bad when we lose. I’m never going to play someone because they were recruited here or this many years of experience or from whatever state. I say that with these guys because I think they know that, and I think that’s part of why they come here.”
Lane Kiffin
Georgia on my mind…
Kiffin and his staff put a special emphasis on hitting the portal and the recruiting trail in general after a 52-17 loss to top-ranked Georgia last season. That feeling after the game made Kiffin realize the Rebels needed to be bigger on both the offensive and defensive lines.
”Reminding them how much I despise losing and that feeling of Georgia, trying to teach our players things happen for a reason,” Kiffin said.
“There’s always good in the bad and the good that came out of that game, you guys remember afterwards sitting there, that feeling like ‘hey, we’ve got to recruit better.’ Because they didn’t look like us in that game. Especially in the front seven on defense and our offensive line. When you go out there and look, you see a glaring difference in our offensive line in the size and our front seven on defense. I contribute that to us recruiting really well in the portal and that feeling in that Georgia game.“
Lane Kiffin on how Georgia game affected Ole Miss recruiting
Ole Miss brought in immediate help on defense with Princely Umanmielen and Walter Nolen on the line, Chris Paul, Jr., at linebacker and five players in the secondary.
First day of media availability for Ole Miss spring football. Here are some D-line drills from today, the group featured here is as listed:
No. 0 – Joshua Harris
No. 1 – Princely Umanielen
No. 2 – Walter Nolen
No. 4 – Suntarine Perkins
No. 15 – Jared Ivey
No. 95 – Akelo Stone… pic.twitter.com/el60Nlfc9R— The Rebel Walk (@TheRebelWalk) March 19, 2024
Offensively, wide receiver Juice Wells, linemen Gerquan Scott, Nate Kalepo and Julius Buelow, tight end Dae’Quan Wright and running back Logan Diggs are all in Oxford.
Unfortunately, Coach Kiffin is unsure when Diggs can return to the field after an injury.
“He had knee surgery, and our hope is that he helps at some point during the season,” Kiffin said. “How fast I don’t know, that’ll be a lot to do with how fast he comes back obviously. But that could be anywhere from the beginning to the end of the season and so that could be a blessing too. Maybe it’s later and you know you’re always looking for when somebody comes back from an injury later in the year, they got fresh legs and sometimes it can be a really good thing.”
In the big picture, Ole Miss has added some key components to the returning players to make another run at double-digit wins and a spot in the new 12-team college football playoff. But as Kiffin points out, talent only gets a team so far.
“This is the best roster but I don’t know if it’s the best team. This is a really good roster, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a great team. There’s a lot of stuff that has to happen from us coaching them, from them buying in, from them putting aside egos — because there’s a lot of them coming in, obviously, when you sign premier players that have played a lot.”
Coach Kiffin on the Rebel roster
Ole Miss fans get their first glimpse at this team April 13 in the Grove Bowl.
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.
