How Ole Miss is TRANSFORMING College Football in 2024 | Sports Detective Podcast

welcome to this episode of the sports detective podcast show my name is James Williams and today we are talking about Old Miss football and I am joined by Stephen Willis who hosts the locked on ol Miss podcast and uh Stephen ol Miss right now uh pre-season number six in the AP poll and I I just wanted to ask you this question to start off here because this has to be one of the most exciting uh seasons for Miss and the history of the entire school had the most wins in school history last year and you expectations just got to be an all-time high in Oxford right now right yeah the only year that I think would be comparable to this one would be 1970 UMAS was a preseason number five but that was the year that Archie Manning famously broke his arm in the middle of the season so the the expectations kind of crashed down so miss fans are kind of trepidacious of what's going on but yeah expectations are Skyhigh they've sold out every SEC football game game um it should be a lot of fun and you know as we record this it's Thursday night Miss has announced its uniform combinations for the firm and the first matchup is kind of like let's go I'm I'm I'm completely out of stuff to talk about let's go absolutely man this is the best time of year we are trying to get to where we actually talk about the football I I was looking at the at at the Old Miss uh kind of database before uh before we started recording here and I saw saw that preseason number five but that's actually kind of an awesome anecdote that Archie uh did have an injury in that season which kind of uh you know tapered the uh you know the realistic expectations and I want to talk about uh the quarterback that you guys have on your team right now that is Jackson Dart and every time I'm listening to a uh show about and they talk about old Miss and they're talking about old miss the first thing they say they talk about Jackson Dart and they say I love Jackson Dart why why do you think so many people are watching Old Miss and they have that impression that they love watching Jackson Dart and they think that he is the the star of your football team and uh he's the guy that can you know really take you guys to another level this season well think about this this 2024 team is Jackson dart's team not llane keen's team think about where the national perspective was on um Lane kein and Old Miss just two years ago but this is Jackson dart's team and the reason it is Jackson dart's team this will be his third year as a starting quarterback and the biggest unicorn potentially in college football is a year three quarterback under Lane kein we don't know what that looks like we assume it's going to be quite good but we haven't seen that before and Jackson Dart decided to come back to school and he spent all of his free time that he had recruiting the number one transfer portal class not just offensive players defensive players as well as Prince Ley and Mellen and Walter noan talked about what kind of a role Jackson Dart did recruiting them and Pete Golding said that there wasn't a recruiting visit dener this winter that Jackson Dart wasn't a part of this he has built this team he has a Magnetic Personality and honestly in 10 years I think you're going to hear Jackson dart's name as a division one college football coach because the recruiting job that he has done second to none so we'll see exactly how this goes but Jackson Dart off the field fantastic on the field he's gotten better and better and better over his three years in school to the point where Mike detillier came on my show and Mike detillier is a relatively famous New Orleans Saints Louisiana draft expert down here and he said with Jack with another year Jackson Dart has a chance to have a jump similar to what Jaden Daniels did his last year in school so there's High expectations everywhere Jackson Dart has the Magnetic Personality he has a chance to leave Old Miss with 90 to 95% of every quarterbacking record and also the winningest quarterback at all time at a school that has had two Mannings this is pretty heady territory right now for Jackson D absolutely he uh I think a lot of people like him too just uh for the the Optics of his eye black that's always kind of a notable thing if you know one thing about Jackson dark you know that he does the uh the one eye with the iel there so that is a uh very impressive thing there with Jackson Dart we saw from 2022 2023 he takes a jump he becomes a much better quarterback helps ol Miss uh win the Peach Bowl uh what do you think that he has to do this year you talked about him making another jump this year what do you think he has to do in order to you know make that jump from not just like you know h a a good SEC quarterback but to a great SEC quarterback or college football quarterback you know what um if on Friday locked on Miss podcast depending on whenever you put this out there we actually talked about this yeah and we used PFF numbers of what he did in 2022 and 2023 to show where the jumps happened between 2022 and 2023 and where the jumps might happen in 2024 and that is the Deep middle of the field that has been his weak point in both of his years at Old Miss but everywhere else he improved last year so that is the area of the field that he seems like he's going to be able to exploit whenever you have Trey Harris when you have Kaden prescor when you have juice Wells it just feels like that is the area to watch this was a very efficient quarterback in the other eight quadrants on the field or quarters or whatever you want to call them whenever you look at zones that's what they're called zones um the Improvement that he did an eight out of the nine zones was remarkable now if you look at the ninth Zone that deep Center it's going to be pretty interesting for Jackson Darth this year absolutely I do want to talk about the other members of this football team though because you guys got 20 starters back this year that is a uh quite a lot of returning production uh Lane kein he has done a uh spectacular job ever since he got to Old Miss ever since I started talking to you you talking to me how blae kein is able to attack the high school recruiting but then he's also been able to mix in a tremendous amount of transfer portal Talent too I think he is like like you know I think on college game day maybe that's just fresh in my mind people were kind of you know singing Mike norvell's prices for him doing that at Florida State I actually think Lane kein is actually probably done as equally as good of a job as Mark noell if not even a better job but I kind of look at this roster though and you're comparing it to a lot of the other teams specifically in the SEC and I see a lot of very good on this roster uh but it feels like if you guys just as a team want to take that next step from not just being like hey the you know the third best team in the SEC or the fourth best team in the SEC to actually competing for an SEC title I think you guys need to be elite at some positions or multiple positions what what positions on this team do you think olus is a leite at or what positions do you think will become Elite uh over the course of this season I think there's two position groups and if we're not counting Jackson Dart because I've talked about Jackson Dart but if you look at two position groups where I think Old Miss Elite that is the wide receiver room to where you have potentially according to PFF they were the number two rated wide wide receiver room in the entire country you have Trey Harris who I think is the best wide receiver in the whole country there's a lot of people that's going to like Luther Burton there's a lot of people that's going to like some some of the wide receivers at Ohio State but I I really like Trey Harrison if you want to know what I'm talking about go back and watch the film last year of old Mrs game versus Texas A&M he can show you exactly what he can do um just absolutely ridiculous catches then almost brought in Juice Wells the wide receiver that was Luther Burton last year year whenever he was at South Carolina before he got injured he looks like he's going to be fairly healthy for the game and all of that then you add Jordan Watkins who I think is the most underrated wide receiver in all of college football he's just a guy that gets forgotten and never talked about but all he does as produces then you have young guys like Aiden Williams and Kaden Lee and those and the best potential tight end in the whole South Eastern Conference in Kaden prorn and you bring in a dayquon Wright from Virginia Tech who is another tight end there's a lot of weapons what I'm saying in the wide receiver and tight end positions now defensive line Walter Nolan former number one player in the all of college football Prince Ley Aman Mellen potentially the best pass rusher in all of college football those get added to a defensive line and JJ Pages who was a good defensive lineman but he was the number one defensive lineman now becomes the number three and you have Jared Ivy um who was the peach bow defensive MVP and a again game that featured the number one defense in all of college football he was the defensive MVP he's the now the fourth defensive line option on this thing so this unit has a chance to be very disruptive and very deep their second team is going to be pretty phenomenal as well and it's just going to be on Miss's defensive line to get the pressure on the quarterback and force the mistakes for people like Trey Amos and Isaiah Hamilton and key Lawrence and Trey Washington on the back end of that defense to clean it up absolutely I was looking at that defensive line looking at some of the pieces and especially the wide receiver room too that's just uh something if Jackson dark does take that next step he's got the weapons out there to definitely look like one of the best quarterbacks in college football maybe even compete for a Heisman if uh things do go well and go the way that you think they are going to go this year for your team and uh when we were talking about teams right now we're talking about these super big Mega conferences with 16 teams the Big 10 has like uh 18 teams ACC has 17 teams a lot of it sometimes comes down to uh what is your schedule and I look at miss' schedule this year and it does break pretty well for you guys you guys avoid Bama and Texas and then you got uh Oklahoma and Georgia at home have you uh you know uttered the words SEC title game yet talking about this team coming up this year it's one of those situations where you want to you can see it happening it's it's not a situation where you're hoping it'd happen there's actually literally a path and a pretty wide one especially with Texas losing two out of his top three running backs who is competing for that position you play Georgia get a guy from SMU out of nowhere yeah yeah yeah you get a guy um you play Georgia in Oxford you know so you're going to know exactly what they have you Miss Alabama which thank goodness because let's just be honest Alabama has been in Lane kid's head over the last few years um so we'll see how it looks I think it would be hilarious if if Miss versus Missouri is the first SEC Championship game of the expanded sec I think that would be hilarious no would be hilarious if it was Miss Missouri I didn't hear that one oh my God that would be funny um yeah you mentioned it there about Lane kein in Alabama being in his head because that is something that I kind of noticed about Lane kein the the last I believe it's just the last two years or maybe it was just last year he kind of had some like odd comments you know kind of about Alabama before like they played and it was one of those things where you saw Lane do it and you're like no no no Lane don't poke the bear what are you doing don't do it don't don't give them anything to like motivate themselves or put any more chips on their shoulder than they already have um is there like kind of like a worry sometimes about laye poking the bear or kind of how he uh handles himself in press conference not not like it's like a bad thing like sometimes it turns into a comical thing kind of like a thing uh it was either earlier this week or last week where he had the whole thing about Coca colola and he's talking about the sugar and then uh Brian Kelly comes back and he's like I love cocacola and everyone's like yeah Brian Kelly we can kind of tell um so so kind of how doese this week there were like four four Coke bottles up on the podium instead of one there was a Coke Zero and a water yeah yeah that's called making a sponsor feel whole again after doing something stupid maybe have like a Coke Zero up there or something zero sugar uh but but kind of like how Lane kein handles these press he kind of like talking a little bit smack to these other teams or like is that something that like motivates him or is it something where it's like hey maybe you need to learn to uh you know maybe keep some of those thoughts in house well he's gotten a lot better recently if we're going to be honest he did some stuff at Alabama just to do stuff at Alabama I I don't know I think he want it so bad to beat Nick Sabin um that it kind of got the best of him but he doesn't really troll too much like you would expect him to so I I'm maybe I'm just desensitized to it at this point um but I don't know if it's something that I'm necessarily worried about yeah yeah I I get that I get that it's one of those things where it's just kind of like from the outside looking in and may maybe we just make a bigger deal out of it than we need to but I do want to talk about Lane kein here while while we're on the subject I mentioned earlier about how he's I think he's done like a a masterful job of turning like this Old Miss team that you know like like we were talking about last year 11 wins is the the best season that you guys have ever had and he's done this you know building through the through High School ranks through the transfer portal what is his can you kind of break down like what his like team building strategy is because that's something that I find very interesting where he's able to kind of balance the you know all of this stuff where it seems like a lot of other teams you know notably Colorado that we're seeing down 20 to 14 as we're recording this now uh they do do a little bit too hard in the transfer portal and kind of ignore High School talent uh son is the team that's like hey we are only doing High School talent we're not going to try anything with the transfer portal so so how does Lane kein kind of build out his teams it's pretty simple well if you think about it it's pretty simple his idea is he wants the best players he can get he doesn't care how he gets them whatever it's going to take to get good players he's going to do and he doesn't think that his any position group is where it needs to be so if he can go into the transfer portal and get a good player he's going to do that if he's going to go into the School ranks he's going to do that if he has to go to the jco rank or even up to Canada like tavius Robinson who's with the Baltimore Ravens right now from Canada they grabbed him during covid Lane kein is going to try and accumulate good players from wherever he can get them and he doesn't care where right now the better part of that is in the transfer portal but it's not only that there are some good high school players that they brought in like famously quinan Judkins was a high school player that they brought in but I don't know if that's going to change or if this year the real question is if om Miss wins 11 games this year goes the playoff host the playoff game does that tell programs like Iowa State like Oklahoma State like Arizona like um Purdue that hey the portal is a more advantageous route to build a roster than to go through High School recruiting where the deck is stacked and you have nine transfer to protect against that player Le don't try and steal any more of my players man you guys already got aim young for us after he was Pig 12 freshman of the year don't don't don't be throwing that stuff out there come on what are we doing leave leave the Big 12 alone we're we're fine all right uh so I I do want to talk to you while I have you here I want to talk about uh the SEC and I want to talk about Texas and Oklahoma because they are the two new additions in this conference and they are coming in they didn't come in just to compete for the SEC they didn't just come in to get fifth and sixth in the conference they came in to win the conference Texas right now is a a team that has National Title aspirations Oklahoma looks like they are more playoff aspirations potentially uh how how do you think both those teams are going to fare for in their first year in the SEC well you're not going to have a run like Oklahoma had in the Big 12 of winning like seven big 12s in 10 years that's not happening um you're you have yeah you're going to have a situation to where there's a lot of programs in the Southeastern Conference that look at things the same way that Texas and Oklahoma do in that way Texas and Oklahoma is coming into a conference with other people that think like they do now Texas has more money than God Oklahoma is just a really good um program U but I don't know that Texas is going to come in and dominant dominate I don't think they're going to come in and necessarily really struggle it just might look like they're struggling because there's so many other teams that operate are operating at a high level in the Southeastern Conference I think Oklahoma and Texas is going to come in and be fine look what Missouri did when they came into the back in 2012 they got two SEC Championship Game appearances under their belt now they went into the SEC East which I don't know where they studied geography to figure that out must have been the same person that decided that call and Stanford needed to go to the Atlantic Coast Conference um but it's a situation I think they're going to be fine they're not going to win it at the level that they have been winning it but they're not going to they're not going to be six in six programs all of a sudden I I think it was an LSU grad that uh made the map for the SEC East and West I I think it was one of those guys that that would have to be it yeah I I think they'll Fair all right uh again it's kind of one of those things where like I look at I I actually think Oklahoma has done like a good job of like building the roster a lot more physically in a way than like Lincoln Riley had at uh Oklahoma and now at USC where he's had a little bit of struggles in his second year so I I think that they build the roster properly but then I just look at their schedule and you just are just like gez it's one of those things with some of the like we were talking about schedules earlier where some teams in the SEC kind of just look at it and you're like wow that is like a tough like three or four game stretch in the middle of the Seas think at this you got you got Georgia that has to go at Texas at Alabama and at Old Miss I mean that's three three top 10 teams that you got to go on the road to now this is probably the best football team in all of college football and that in my opinion they have a chance to be the equivalent of that 1990 Michigan team do you remember that with Desmond Howard to where somehow they lost three games that was the best team in college football they were absolutely the best team in college football but they lost three games and Georgia has a chance to do something very similar and just go to the Citrus Bowl or whatever and just absolutely whitewash somebody poor Liberty it's probably gonna be Liberty it'll be like a 59 to zero game that's what they did the that's what they did to FSU a year ago oh yeah that's definitely what happened that's absolutely what happened there uh Stephen we're out of time here tonight we got some football we need to watch you want to tell us where we can uh find all of your Miss coverage and then we'll uh get out of here today yes it's the locked on Miss podcast it's on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast you can follow me on Twitter at the Steven Willis all one word you can follow me on um Instagram and I'm also on Tik talk at L Old Miss um if you do that you can see what's going on there so um just check search locked on Old Miss You can find me on those platforms um love to have all the perspectives in the world and I love it when other people's fans are coming into the comments and all of that and kind of keep me straight because I do say crazy stuff from time to time absolutely man thanks for coming on all right appreciate it Bud thank you for watching this episode of the sports decta podcast show if you liked what you saw here today don't forget to hit that like button and hit that subscribe button if you haven't already that is the best thing that you could do to help the show grow and help support this podcast and it costs you absolutely zero dollar and make sure you follow Steph Willis on all of the places where you can watch his work and uh again thank you for watching maybe check out some other videos that I've done talk to you next time