ATLANTA — As the red and white confetti gently settled onto the turf Saturday afternoon following its brief trip into Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s atmosphere, the gravity of the moment was evident on the faces of all those standing center stage, holding a new piece of hardware soon to be added to the Manning Center’s lobby.
Ole Miss junior quarterback Jaxson Dart stood on the raised platform, flanked by senior wide receiver Tre Harris, senior tight end Caden Prieskorn, senior defensive end Jared Ivey and others, each taking turns looking at or holding the silver football portion of their newest trophy — and nearly dropping it a few times in the process. It was their spoils for a well-earned 38-25 victory over No. 10 Penn State in the Peach Bowl. The No. 11 Rebels fittingly capped off their first-ever 11-win campaign in 129 seasons of proud football tradition. Head coach Lane Kiffin said his goal when he took the Ole Miss job four years ago was to make history. It doesn’t get much more historic than that.
Kiffin is the architect of one of the most successful stretches in Ole Miss history. The Rebels have won 29 games over the last three seasons. Included in there have been two berths in New Year’s Six games; the first trip didn’t go as planned, with the Rebels falling to Baylor in the Sugar Bowl following an early injury to star quarterback Matt Corral. But the second trip couldn’t have been any sweeter.
After a back-and-forth first half, the Rebels dominated Penn State in the third quarter, asserting their will on the best statistical defense in college football. Kiffin and offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. called an absolute masterclass, surgically dismantling the Nittany Lions through a combination of Dart’s deadly accurate deep strikes and the soul-crushing, bruising running of sophomore Quinshon Judkins. Defensive coordinator Pete Golding took Penn State’s best shot and withstood the storm.
Saturday afternoon was Kiffin’s masterpiece. And the scary part? His painting might be even prettier in 2024.
There’s a key piece of history left for Kiffin to make — to win a national championship — and Ole Miss is all in on it. And, perhaps most importantly, the Rebels believe it can happen.
“I really do believe we’re just getting started. I think that we’re doing something — we’re on our way to something really special,” Kiffin said. “ … We really are. We’re just getting started on something really special and a run here. I normally say that’s never been done before, but I guess we just did that, but to come back and do it even better and to continue to improve on what we’ve done so far.”
Ole Miss will be among the key talking points of college football for the next nine months or so. In addition to winning a New Year’s Six game, the Rebels also have a handful of key players — Harris, Ivey, Prieskorn, and senior defensive tackle J.J. Pegues, among others — committed to return. Should Dart choose to run it back, the Rebels would easily be a preseason top-15 squad on those factors alone and a contender in an expanded 12-team College Football Playoff field.
But add in a top-20 recruiting class and the nation’s top-rated transfer portal haul that includes top-rated player Walter Nolen, three more players ranked in the portal’s top-20 and six overall in the top-60 to a team that was already good? The Rebels will easily be in the preseason top-10 and potentially in the top-five in every conceivable poll. They will be the subject of more “College Football Live” segments than you can possibly imagine. The Lane Train will have never been fuller.
And Harris is already grinning about the infinite possibilities. This was all part of the plan.
“As a collective team, we all knew, hey, we go into this year, we go beat a really good team, it’s going to really put the world on notice. It’s going to show everybody … we’re coming out here next year, and we’re going to come for … something bigger,” Harris said. “With us getting a lot of guys out of the portal and even a really good high school recruiting class, it just shows all those guys that … we’re going out there, we’re not playing with nobody. We’re going out there, we’re going to dominate. And that’s the mindset for next year.”
Michael Katz is the Ole Miss sports beat reporter for Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.
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