OXFORD, Miss. — When Ole Miss finally opens its season against Furman next Saturday, a lot of eyes will be glued to televisions to watch the Rebels as college football darlings.

Despite his persona on social media, Lane Kiffin isn’t the only reason fans are keeping a close eye on the program this fall. It’s mainly his high powered offense led by quarterback Jaxson Dart and wide receiver Tre Harris which have folks talking in August.

“He’s not crazy, he’s pretty chill”@OleMissFB WR Tre Harris shares some insight on his coach @Lane_Kiffin and his QB @JaxsonDart pic.twitter.com/gRlPaUaiF9

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) August 20, 2024

“I do believe we are the best,” Harris said about his connection with Dart on offense. “We have a really, really good chemistry that we worked on constantly throughout the offseason. Constantly putting in routes, him throwing me the ball and things like that. And, you know, even off the field we are constantly with each other talking about the team, how we can improve the team. Whenever we have to, we have those times where we just checking up on each other.

“That’s one thing that us as a leaders we always keep, we always keep that in mind is that we always want to check up on each other. Check up on your brother. Just see how you’re doing, mentally, without even talking about football. That’s something that he does for me, really, really well, and that’s something I do for him.”

The specific connection between Dart and Harris began last season after transferring in from Louisiana Tech following the 2022 season. Harris caught 54 passes for a team-high 985 yards and eight touchdowns. Their dynamite ability will be tested again this fall as they look to make the expanded 12-team playoff.

The addition of South Carolina wide receiver Antwane ‘Juice’ Wells will help keep Harris healthy and open more often than not. Without last year’s leading rusher Quinshon Judkins, Kiffin may opt to air out his offense given it lacks a proven power run attack.

Harris believes his head coach is quite chill as a person but as a coach Kiffin appears to be a mad scientist and offensive mastermind.

“Oh, I wouldn’t call him crazy,” Harris said of Kiffin. “I just call it controlled chaos or something like that. It’s great having him as a coach. He constantly keeps you on your toes, even as a veteran guy. Throughout fall camp it can get a little get a little tiring, get a little redundant, repetitive and things like that.

“He always finds a way to keep things innovative, keep things new, keep things creative. That’s what he does in the offense as well. He finds ways to get his play makers the ball in each and every way, whether it’s moving guys to the side, or moving guys to a different position or things like that. So, you know, I’m super excited, and I’m super excited to play for him.”

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OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss’ crop of freshmen are considered some of the more highly regarded talent out of the state of Mississippi in some time. The Rebels signed a total of 10 4-star prospects with the top six signees reared from the Magnolia State.

One of those heavily recruited freshman is four-star lineman Williams Echoles. Projected as an offensive lineman out of high school, he’ll play defense in college. The 6-foot-3, 290 pound tackle earned a nod from On3 as a member of its preseason all-freshmen team.

On3 Preseason True Freshman All-American: Ole Miss DL William Echoles🦈https://t.co/ZD1sjFLukT pic.twitter.com/RfOXESNy9b

— On3 (@On3sports) August 19, 2024

Much of the list is based off recruiting ranking, team depth issues and hearsay from closed practices. Echoles is worth the hype coming to Oxford as the No. 77 ranked prospect nationally, No. 16 defensive lineman and the top prospect in Mississippi. He terrorized offensive backfields as a senior recording 73 tackles, 23 tackles for loss, 15 sacks and three fumble recoveries.

How much playing time Echoles will receive as a freshman is up in the air as the Rebels recruited at an extremely high level in the transfer portal. Former Texas A&M defensive end Walter Nolen and Florida transfer edge rusher Princely Umanmielen are projected to be starters week one.

Although he has a few guys in front of him, there is certainly room for Echoles to play early. Kiffin isn’t afraid to let freshmen in the mix early if he’s thought of as a difference maker. Even defensive coordinator Pete Golding is high on the Rebels’ high school newcomer.

“I think Will Echoles is exactly who we thought he was,” Golding said to reporters last week. “I think he can be a really dominant player at this level. How much that is this year, we’ll see. But definitely he can have a role and have the ability to help us.”

OXFORD, Miss. — There is no secret this year that Ole Miss is polished and ready as a program to make a run at the SEC Championship. It’s been 61 long years since the Rebels have even won a conference title and that’s when the league only had 10 teams way back in 1963.

Lane Kiffin brings confidence and swagger to a school that’s been mostly an also ran before the past 12 years or so. Hugh Freeze helped prop the Rebels to national notoriety with the programs unprecedented recruiting wins.

Now, the Rebels have an opportunity through NIL, transfer portal activity and enough returning starters to have built enough depth to compete for a national title. Ole Miss brought in the No. 1 transfer class and a crop of in-state freshman ready to make an impact which could be the perfect storm at the right time with an expanded 12-team playoff.

Like his mentor Nick Saban, Kiffin uses the phrase ‘rat poison’ to deflect praise from his player’s skulls. The last thing he wants is team to become cocky, complacent and unmoved at his program’s ultimate task this season.

“As Coach Saban used to say, that’s truly the rat poison, especially in the preseason,” Kiffin said at SEC Media Days. “There have been plenty of teams not ranked high that end up high and plenty of high-ranked teams that end up low.”

He went on to share more of his thoughts on the Rebels’ praise in the preseason. It’s tougher now than ever to keep players tuned into the task at hand but knows its up to the team to remain focused under his guidance.

“I do talk about it extensively to players because I think that does come at them non stop nowadays because of phones,” Kiffin said last week. “That’s a big concern of mine and we talk about it all the time. There’s more of it than we’ve ever had here, for sure, with the preseason rankings and the position rankings or with mock-draft things and we’re supposed to have this many people drafted, which is way more than we’ve ever had. It’s a lot to guard against.”

Kiffin has been in this situation one other time before while he led USC through heavy NCAA sanctions. Despite restrictions, the Trojans finished 10-2 with a 7-2 mark in conference play in 2011. After the thrilling campaign, 2012 was set to be an entertaining season as his team was voted No. 1 overall to start the season with a solid group of returning stars off an exceptional offense.

This time around, Kiffin plans to motivate his team differently by embracing the chase than being chased.

“That was a different situation because that truly was rat poison of where we shouldn’t have been due to scholarship limitations (restricted to 75 scholarships from 85 man limit due to sanctions) and how low our roster was,” Kiffin said, “You still want to learn from every obstacle that happens in your life. I think we probably leaned into that too much at the time.

“Matt Barkley was coming back, and [USC] was preseason No. 1 after a strong finish the year before. We kind of embraced that and leaned into that. It didn’t work, so as you look back, you say you probably shouldn’t have and resisted that more.”