Ole Miss football practice has been competitive
OXFORD — Ole Miss football held its first scrimmage of the spring Saturday. After a weekend of evaluating the tape, Rebels coach Lane Kiffin came away pretty pleased.
“Saturday was good,” Kiffin said. “Guys made a lot of plays on both sides. It’s been very competitive. The addition of new people, like anything, competition makes everything better, so that’s been good.
“It’s just pushing along. Guys have good energy, good attitude.”
The story of the spring thus far has been the infusion of new personnel via the transfer portal and coaching staff hires.
Kiffin came away impressed Saturday by the way his new coaches are adjusting and managing their position groups and encouraged by growth in some of those position groups with particularly high levels of turnover, such as running back and defensive line.
“I think up front we’ve finally gotten close to where we wanted to be when we got here,” Kiffin said of the defensive line. “It’s no secret we haven’t felt like there have been a lot of quality players up front where we can rotate and play guys. I think we’re on that way with a lot of transfers. Hopefully we’ll be way deeper.”
As for Ole Miss’ marquee position battle, Kiffin deferred to coach-speak when grading the performances of quarterbacks Luke Altmyer and Jaxson Dart. Kiffin said Dart, the Southern Cal transfer, made more big plays downfield but also made more mistakes. Altmyer played more consistently and safely but didn’t have as many highlight plays.
Kiffin attributed Altmyer’s consistency and Dart’s flashes to experience. Altmyer has a year playing in Kiffin’s system that Dart doesn’t, and that’s been a factor in the competition.
It doesn’t seem like Kiffin is close to declaring a starter, saying “both guys have made plays” when asked whether either has an edge.
Ole Miss will host spring scrimmages on each of the next two Saturdays before finishing offseason practices April 23 with the annual Grove Bowl spring game.