Ole Miss Football Practice Report: Fall Camp Week 2

OXFORD, Miss. – (Release) The pads are on, and Ole Miss football’s fall camp is officially in full swing as Lane Kiffin and the Rebels look to continue a streak of consecutive 10-win seasons.

Kiffin, along with receiver Deuce Alexander and defensive back Kapena Gushiken, met with the media after Wednesday’s practice to provide the latest from inside the Olivia and Archie Manning Athletics Performance Center. Check it all out below in the latest practice report, presented by Mississippi Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center.

Dealing in Depth

If you check media guides across the country and pull college football preview magazines off of newsstands, you’ll likely see what has often been thought of as a critical stat for teams going into the season: returning starters. Ole Miss has just four returning players who started more than half of its games last year: Cayden Lee, TJ Dottery, Suntarine Perkins and Diego Pounds. Despite only 54 starts combined returning on the entire roster from 2024, Kiffin likes where is team is at.

“Guys are doing really well. I’m excited about this team. A lot of new pieces. A lot of different things to look at—schemes with different players. Obviously, we lost a lot of players, but at the same time, we added a lot,” Kiffin said. “You used to be able to figure out how good a team was based on their returning starters, but it’s completely different because a lot of times, you’re getting starters from other teams. On paper, that wouldn’t look very good with four returning starters, but it doesn’t feel like that at all out there. We have a lot of good depth at spots, a lot of players challenging each other. It’s been really good.”

As Kiffin mentioned, times have changed in the sport, and no longer is fall camp about teaching a massive group of freshmen how to be college football players. Ole Miss already welcomed 40 mid-year enrollees in February, so many of the newcomers have already been through spring ball and summer workouts.

“Part of why I feel good about this team now is because there were so many practices in the offseason compared to the old days,” Kiffin said. “So mentally, even with all of these new players, they seem to know the systems really well and be ahead of where you would’ve been back before we had the ability to do all of this offseason work.”

How Deep Out Wide

There might not be a better microcosm of that process than the receiver room, where Ole Miss must replace three of its top four pass-catchers. Tre Harris, Jordan Watkins and Antwane Wells Jr. combined for 137 receptions, 2,489 yards and 22 touchdowns last year before heading to the NFL Draft. Yet the receiver room, Kiffin says, is the deepest its ever been with the addition of De’Zhaun Stribling, Harrison Wallace III, Traylon Ray and Deuce Alexander, not to mention a talented group of freshmen, leaving Ole Miss with one of those good problems: finding enough snaps for everyone.

“A lot of guys are motivated by the NFL and the draft. We talk to them a lot. You can miss some starts or be a part-time starter, they don’t care when they go to draft you. Look at where Jordan Watkins went after not being a starter at the beginning of the year,” Kiffin said. “We just tell guys, it’s going to take care of itself. We play a lot of snaps. This system is at its best when we have receiver depth. This is the deepest receiver group that would allow us, if we stay healthy, to truly rotate like you should in this system, and be better in the fourth quarter of games.”

While only Lee has played in an Ole Miss uniform, the Rebels will have a veteran group. Stribling led Oklahoma State with 882 receiving yards last year. Wallace paced the Penn State receiving corps with 720. Ray was second in West Virginia’s receiving room with 426 yards, while Alexander was No. 3 on the Wake Forest stat sheet with 400—though they aren’t worried about the logistics.

“Every day, we come in to compete. We love to compete in the room. We know it’s a crowded room. We know there are a lot of talented guys. Everyone has their own skill set, so we just compete with each other every day,” Alexander said. “I definitely don’t think it’s a negative thing. We all know what the goal is at the end of the day. We all have the same goal in mind, same mindset.”

Secondary Benefits

The exceptional talent in the receiver room has also benefitted Ole Miss on the other side of the ball. Kiffin noted the secondary as the biggest area for improvement in the spring. That group, which was depleted due to injury in the offseason, is now at full strength, and Kiffin is impressed with its progress.

“That’s been really big for us, to get that group better, and then that makes us better on the other side,” Kiffin said. “In the spring, I felt like that was an issue. We weren’t challenged a lot with some guys hurt in the secondary. It’s much better now. Deeper. More competition. It’s in a really good spot.”

Ole Miss also has to replace some talent in the defensive backfield, including second-round draft pick Trey Amos at corner, and a four-year starter in Trey Washington. Gushiken is one of Ole Miss’ top transfers in the defensive backfield, and he’s liking what he’s seeing from the secondary as they square off against a talented receiving corps on a daily basis.

“We’re continuing to build that chemistry and grow as a group,” Gushiken said. “There’s been a lot of mistakes, but part of that is, you have to make mistakes to get better. We understand that, if we can lock down these guys in practice, we can lock down anybody in the country. They’re as good as it gets. It definitely helps us as DBs bring that confidence every day.”

(Article/Feature image courtesy of Ole Miss Athletics)