Could Jaxson Dart really become Lane Kiffin’s first 1st-round quarterback?

Jaxson Dart is trying to make history. Or rather, he’s trying to make more history.

You see, he already set the Ole Miss record for wins by a starting quarterback (28), total offense (12,115 yards), passing yards (10,617 yards), passing efficiency (162.8), 300-yard passing games (15), rushing yards by a QB (1,498) and total offense per play (8.14). Dart established himself as one of the SEC’s top quarterbacks of the 2020s, and after a prolific 3-year run as Ole Miss’ QB1, he’s trying to make more history.

Becoming Lane Kiffin’s first 1st-round quarterback would indeed qualify as a historic feat.

Dart, who earned top American Team QB honors after an impressive week at the Senior Bowl, might have a chance to do just that. A thin quarterback class could be partially responsible for that, as could Dart’s progression under Kiffin, who would love to move past the narrative that he can’t develop an NFL quarterback. Why does that narrative exist, you ask?

Here’s the list of quarterbacks that Kiffin had selected in the NFL Draft after they finished their careers with him as their head coach:

• 2010 — Jonathan Crompton (Tennessee), 5th round
• 2013 — Matt Barkley (USC), 4th round
• 2022 — Matt Corral (Ole Miss), 3rd round

Now if you’re including Kiffin’s time as a coordinator and pretending like 13 years as a head coach at 4 schools is a minimal sample size, fine. I guess you can credit Kiffin for Matt Leinart’s 1st-round selection in 2006.

But if we’re just talking about his track record as a head coach, no, Kiffin has never had a 1st-round quarterback, nor has he had a quarterback selected in the first 90 picks of the NFL Draft. Kiffin’s quarterbacks have 7 career starts in the NFL, all of which belong to Barkley, who retired after a 7-year career that ended with a 2-5 record and an 11-22 TD-INT ratio.

Yeah, you won’t see that on an Ole Miss brag graphic anytime soon.

And to be clear, it’s not as if lacking a 1st-round quarterback is some indictment of a head coach. Nick Saban didn’t have one at Alabama until Tua Tagovailoa in 2020. Brian Kelly just had his first when Jayden Daniels was selected No. 2 overall in 2024. Kirby Smart still hasn’t had one, and neither did the late Mike Leach, who might’ve been college football’s best offensive mind of the 21st century.

The problem for Kiffin is that like we saw with the Leach Air Raid, the NFL still has questions about that scheme translating to the next level. Josh Heupel is working against that, too. Even at a time when college and NFL systems have never been closer, there are still hurdles facing Dart. Can he operate a huddle without an up-tempo offense? Can he go under center instead of operating exclusively out of shotgun? Can he operate well without play-action after he led FBS with 252 of those drop-backs in 2024?

Dart was No. 4 in FBS with 53.2% of his drop-back snaps having some form of play-action (via PFF). The highest percentage of play-action drop-back snaps by a 1st-round quarterback in a pre-Draft season in the 2020s decade was Mac Jones at 46.7% (min. 100 drop-backs). Tagovailoa was the only other 1st-round quarterback in the 2020s with at least 40%.

(In case you were wondering, Corral led FBS with a 60.4% drop-back percentage using play-action during his pre-Draft season under Kiffin in 2021.)

That’s significant because the NFL starters with the highest-such play-action drop-back percentage were Jared Goff at 35.7%. Only 3 full-time starters were above 30%. As much as it feels like NFL teams are adapting college concepts, there are still issues like that for Dart to overcome. It doesn’t mean he can’t. It’s just part of the evaluation process.

The good news for Dart is that he has plenty of things working in his favor, most notably his track record attacking downfield. He led FBS with 17 touchdown passes on throws that traveled 20 yards and he had a 47.7% adjusted completion percentage on those throws. On top of that, Dart also finished 2024 with an adjusted completion percentage of 73% (No. 5 in FBS) on throws of 10-to-19 yards.

Dart’s toughness was never in question during a 3-year career at Ole Miss in which he didn’t miss a start due to injury. He could take a hit (and often lose his helmet in the process) while facing pressure and still deliver. PFF had Dart for 9 big-time throws under pressure, which was the same as 1st-Round prospect Cam Ward and it was 1 more than 1st-Round prospect Shedeur Sanders. And on the flip side, neither Ward, Sanders nor any other FBS quarterback had a better NFL QB rating when kept clean than Dart (133.4).

There’s a lot to like with Dart, especially considering quarterback mobility has never had more next-level value. While Dart isn’t as dynamic as Jalen Milroe or as savvy as Riley Leonard, he checks that box, too. Dart actually averaged more yards after contact than Milroe in 2024 (3.12 to 2.89) and he forced more missed tackles (22) than Ward and Sanders combined (21).

But perhaps it’s foolish to compare Dart to Ward and Sanders. After all, those signal-callers are expected to come off the board in the first 5 picks while Dart’s market likely won’t start until the latter half of Round 1, perhaps with the Steelers at No. 21. Alternatively, we could see a team fall in love with Dart and trade into the late-1st round to get him like the Green Bay Packers did with Jordan Love in 2020.

Love is someone to keep in mind for Dart’s evaluation. Excluding JJ McCarthy, who missed his entire rookie year with a preseason injury, every 1st-round quarterback in the 2020s besides Love started multiple games in their rookie season (Love was waiting behind a future Hall of Famer in Aaron Rodgers).

That’s the question that needs to be asked with Dart. Can he be trusted to start as a rookie? That’s how 1st-round quarterbacks are evaluated now, and perhaps with the learning curve that’s assumed of Kiffin’s signal-callers, that’s going to continue to be too steep of a hurdle to overcome.

But as the pre-Draft process ramps up, it’s become clear that Dart at least made history a possibility.

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.