OXFORD — Ole Miss senior quarterback Jaxson Dart threw for 382 and four touchdowns Saturday night against Georgia Southern, and senior wide receiver Tre Harris had a career-high 225 receiving yards as the Rebels defeated the Eagles 52-13 at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

Ole Miss, who starts SEC play against Kentucky next weekend, has not lost a regular-season nonconference game since 2019. The announced attendance of 67,505 at Saturday’s game broke the Vaught-Hemingway Stadium record set last season against LSU.

“I think that’s because it’s a good style. Like, it’s fun to watch,” Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin said. “If you produce concerts, and you have really good country concerts, and you have good lights going on and the singer’s performing well and the bands perform well, people come back. And so, again, our main objective is to win, to get to 1-0. But we’ve built this thing with some style in it, hoping that it was entertaining, and this is what it would look like for your fans, and also for recruits watching and say, ‘Man, I want to go play there.’”

Georgia Southern’s touchdown with 14:12 left in the second quarter was the first touchdown Ole Miss has allowed this season — a span of 196 minutes and 48 seconds of game action. The Rebels surrendered just 194 yards of offense in the game. Ole Miss has outscored opponents 220-22 this season.

“(Giving up the touchdown) really infuriated us, because that’s not how we play,” junior linebacker Chris Paul Jr., who led the Rebels with 10 tackles and 1.5 sacks, said. “We know that we’re better than that, and we feel like, once we had got to the sideline, we just had to lock in to (our) adjustment … But man, when we got to that sideline, I could just see that that really hit everybody, and it just fired them up even more.”

Ole Miss (4-0) started the game with the ball for the fourth time in as many games and scored in 31 seconds — just two plays — by way of a 40-yard reception from Harris and a 35-yard touchdown strike to senior Antwane Wells Jr. Georgia Southern proceeded to fumble on its first offensive play, and the Rebels recovered at the Eagles’ 8-yard line. Senior Caden Davis’ 28-yard field goal gave Ole Miss a double-digit lead less than two minutes into the game. Dart threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to Watkins with just under five minutes left in the first quarter.

The Rebels surrendered their first touchdown of the season 1:48 into the second quarter, a touchdown pass from running back OJ Arnold. After being forced to punt on the first drive of the second quarter, Dart hit Harris in-stride down the visiting sideline for a 70-yard touchdown to increase the lead to 17. Ole Miss outgained the Eagles 325-95 in the first half.

Senior cornerback Brandon Turnage intercepted Georgia Southern’s JC French on the first drive of the third quarter. An offensive pass interference call brought back Harris’ second touchdown catch of the night, but senior defensive tackle JJ Pegues took a direct snap and leapt over the line later on the drive for a 1-yard touchdown, his second rushing score of the season. A 35-yard pass from Dart to Harris on the next drive set up a 5-yard touchdown run from senior Henry Parrish Jr.

Dart was intercepted on a deep shot to Wells in the fourth quarter, but the offense rallied behind the running game on the next drive and cashed in on a short touchdown run from senior Domonique Thomas. The Rebels finished with 607 yards of offense.

Dart, who entered the weekend leading the nation in passing yards, has 12 passing touchdowns and three rushing scores this season. Dart’s success, Harris said, comes from his preparation.

“Every Thursday, we go through the script and we go through the openers and things like that, and he gets all the receivers, and we talk about what his thought process is in-between each single play,” Harris said. “And we go through each and every single play of, what he’s thinking, what he’s reading, and how he feels in this play, what he’s going to be looking at. So, for him to have that amount of leadership, that amount of connection with each and every receiver, it’s only going to boost his game even more.”

Ole Miss hosts Kentucky next Saturday at 11 a.m. to start SEC play. The game will be broadcast on ABC.