Ole Miss senior quarterback Jaxson Dart and wide receiver Jordan Watkins both came to Ole Miss prior to the 2022 season, on the heels of a 10-3 campaign engineered by Matt Corral. In the three seasons since Dart, Watkins, defensive linemen J.J. Pegues and Jared Ivey and the others who arrived via the transfer portal that offseason have won 29 games – which includes two of the 10 10-win seasons Ole Miss has ever amassed. The finale for Dart and Watkins was among their finest pieces of work, a 52-20 win over Duke in the Gator Bowl where Dart threw for 404 yards and four touchdowns, with Watkins accounting for 180 of those yards and a pair of scores.
But as the dust settled on their prolific careers Thursday night in the bowels of EverBank Stadium, the duo took the majority of their time in front of the microphone offering examples of what Ole Miss gave to them rather than vice versa.
“Oxford is just an unbelievable town, man. I think you really just do it for the fans,” Watkins said. “This fan base in the past has been let down several times, and then just being able to go out there and just wear Ole Miss across your chest just for them, for the little kids in the community. You go out to eat or go out to lunch or something like that, and you’ve got little kids that’s there just smiling ear to ear just to be able to see you. … You don’t get that everywhere.”
Watkins finished his Ole Miss career with 142 catches for 2,096 yards and 14 touchdowns. Dart, meanwhile, set nearly every possible quarterbacking record in just three seasons at the helm, including single-season and career records for both passing yards and total offense. In his final season, Dart – who became the first Rebels quarterback to be named first-team All-SEC by the league’s coaches since 2003 – threw for 4,279 yards, 29 touchdowns and just six interceptions in 2024 and added 495 yards and three touchdowns on the ground. His 180.7 efficiency rating leads the FBS.
“I hope that regardless of how wins and losses go, I hope that our fans appreciate this time frame of what’s going on with Ole Miss football, but specifically this quarterback, all-time winningest quarterback, all-time most yards. That’s special,” head coach Lane Kiffin said. “I’ve played football a long time with some really good quarterbacks. (I) just hope everybody appreciates what they saw – statistically in the play – but what they saw from a competitor and leader, that a lot of guys wouldn’t even have played in the game.”
Perhaps more important than the historic numbers Dart put up was what he did for the Rebels in the locker room. His decision to play in the Gator Bowl started a trend that resulted in just a single opt-out by an NFL Draft-eligible player on the team, and it was his work as a recruiter that helped put together the Rebels’ 2024 roster, per Kiffin. His toughness on the field was matched by his leadership off of it.
In addition to wanting to prove the Rebels belonged in the 12-team College Football Playoff and notch another double-digit win season, Dart also said his decision to play in the bowl was due in part to his love for Ole Miss and his teammates.
“You have a lot of pride that you carry over when you wear this jersey. Everything that Oxford has, we feel like Oxford has given more to us than we could give to them. You’ve heard coach Kiffin say that, but we feel that way, too, being transfers,” Dart said. “I think for pretty much everybody, it wasn’t like we had to convince anybody to play. Everybody was on the same page. You grow up as a little kid, and you want to play college football. When you’re a kid, you never think about sitting out of a game. That was never a thought.”
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