Lane Kiffin: Winner or Whiner? (Ole Miss Preview)
Lane Kiffin is on a mission to make a statesman of himself.
After failing to get the Auburn job, Kiffin has decided that he’s going to be the Nick Saban, proclaiming the evils of NIL.
He reckons that it’s a crazy free market, with schools that have the most aggressive donors (I think he was taking a shot at the rest of the SEC, but who knows?) being able to sign any recruit they want, limiting the actions of recruiting and essentially played Money-ed ball (you heard that line hear first).
Speaking of free market, it’s not secret that Lane Kiffin was lifting his blouse to Auburn for ages, and it didn’t work out. For some reason (and we suspect a lot of this was to do with money), they chose to go with Hugh Freeze.
And yes, he admitted the transfer portal is pretty f***ed up, too.
For me, this is a weird one, considering that Kiffin has been a master of getting great offensive players through the transfer portal. Last year he got Jaxson Dart from USC, where he was the starting quarterback until Caleb Williams came in and ‘stole’ his place (more like ‘ran him through like a train, but semantics!), who played all season long. He added Zach Evans, who ran for nearly 1000 yards.
This year, he added TWO more QBs in Walker Howard from LSU (who’s meant to be a star) and Spencer Sanders, the mecurial and entertaining former QB at Oklahoma State. It’s like he’s playing ‘Hunger Games’ with 3 QBs. He’s taken 10 other transfer portal players, and it’s madness.
But does all this mean that Ole Miss is actually going to be as fun as Lane Kiffin’s mouth or social media links are?
WHO’S COMING IN
As mentioned, Howard and Sanders create one hell of a battle in the quarterback room. Why Kiffin hasn’t been more sensitive to the fact that these two (plus Jaxson Dart) might want to play college football this year if they don’t play in Oxford has left this writer wondering if Lane Kiffin might actually be sociopathic.
He boosted his offense with WR Zakhari Franklin from UTSA, who had 93 catches, 1,137 yards and 15 TDs (at a 12.2 catch/yard clip), as well as Tre Harris (Louisiana Tech). Watch out for TE Caden Prieskorn, who had 602 yards receiving and 7 TDs in his time at Memphis.
On the defensive side, CB Chris Graves has come over from Miami, LB TJ Dudley from Clemson, as well as depth across both lines.
WHO’S GONE
The biggest news is that RB Zach Evans has gone pro. We knew this would happen. Also gone are Ole Miss’ two top wide receivers in Malik Heath and Jonathan Mingo. Both of them have NFL contracts.
Chris Marshall, who was a transfer from Texas A&M, was summarily booted for a violation of team rules (he was arrested and suspended for weed in College Station).
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OFFENSE
This is a Lane Kiffin offense, but if you’re thinking that you’ll see Dart/Howard/Sanders light it up over and over again y’all have another thing coming. That’s because Quinshon Judkins is so damned good. Lighting up the SEC for rushing yards (1,567, also good for 7th nationally), Judkins was the funnest things to watch, and pushed Evans – an accomplished player in himself – squarely away from the limelight. Ulysses Bentley should be a worthy foil.
But as we’ve mentioned, expect Franklin to be the star (he kinda has to be with Mingo and Heath gone) and Prieskorn be one of the those players that people will be surprised to hear the name of, but most Ole Miss fans won’t be come the middle of the season. Oh, and watch out for Frosh WR Ayden Williams, a five-star who was ranked No.18 amongst the country’s wide receivers.
DEFENSE
Ole Miss’ D was ordinary last year, ranking 57th out of 131 in 2022. It was slightly down from the 51st out of 131 in 2021, but still, it’s not great. It also ranked midway in the SEC for passing and rushing yards against.
What this means is that the days of ‘Shoot first, ask questions later’ that plagued Hugh Freeze’s team are somewhat of a distant and very bad memory.
We’re pretty excited about true freshman LB Suntarine Perkins, who the 14th best player in the 2023 class, as well as the top player at his position in the country and state. He could be a lynchpin of the defense on a system not well known for, er, playing defense.
Zamari Watson comes in from Georgia Tech who had 1 TD and 24 tackles and CB/S Teja Young, who had 2 INTs and 30 tackles for FAU.
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PREDICTION
Mercer: W
at Tulane: W
Georgia Tech: W
at Alabama: L
LSU: L
Arkansas: W
at Auburn: W
Vanderbilt: W
Texas A&M: W
at Georgia: L
ULM: W
at Mississippi State: L
8-4. Thanks to Judkins and some excellent transfers, Lane Kiffin’s team is going to be pretty successful. The LSU, Texas A&M and Mississippi State games are all swing games. Hopefully, with the quarterback(s) that the team has and great target-men like Franklin and Priest ‘The Beast’, Kiffin’s team might actually be one he wants to stick around with.
Unless a better job offer comes along.