Ad Disclosure
Ole Miss came out dominant in Week 1, pulverizing Mercer 73-7 to begin the season on a high note.
The Rebels had their foot on the gas the entire game and didn’t make light of Mercer, and now they have confidence and momentum heading into the season.
Head coach Lane Kiffin commended his team for the way they never slowed down, despite the score.
“Obviously there’s things to get better, we all know that,” Kiffin said in his post game press conference. “But I commend them for how they started the game. I also commend them at halftime cause, a lot of times when you have leads like that you come out flat in the second half, or when the 2s and 3s go in you do.”
Kiffin made the decision to go with Jaxon Dart as his starter, though Spencer Sanders also saw significant action. Ultimately, the decision of who started didn’t matter as much as the results on the field.
“I thought both guys had a great fall camp, had played well in the scrimmages and the mock game,” Kiffin said. “We felt really good about both guys being able to win for us, and I thought both guys played extremely well today and made a lot of plays. At the end of the day we had to make a decision who went first, and Jaxon did and did a really good job and now we’ll go back and go to work this week.”
Tre Harris made his debut for Ole Miss and shined, recording 133 receiving yards and a program-record 4 receiving touchdowns.
“I really thought he had played like this the whole camp, really dominant receiver,” Kiffin said. “So for him to go out and perform today in his first Power 5 game and caught 4 touchdowns.”
The Rebels’ defense gave up an early touchdown, but responded well the rest of the game, holding Mercer scoreless from that point on.
“That wasn’t a really good start, but after that we only gave up 14 yards rushing,” Kiffin said.
Receiver Michael Trigg was not dressed for the first half, but ended up suiting up in the second half and had a decent game with 44 yards. Kiffin said the decision to sit him in the first half had to do with internal discipline.
“We have discipline in our program that we handle internally, and that was part of it,” Kiffin said. “And it was good to see him respond really well in the second half and that had nothing to do with anyone else’s play or injuries. That was the plan.”
