Rebels Enter Bye Week, Kiffin Grateful for DeMarcus Thomas’ Recovery

By Adam Brown
Sports Editor
adam.brown@hottytoddy.com

The Ole Miss Rebels enter this weekend with a bye as they take a week to improve in different areas of the game.

On Wednesday, the Rebels took to the practice fields for only the second time this week. Freshman tight end DeMarcus Thomas, who was airlifted off of the practice field on Monday after an injury caused him to lose feeling in much of his body, was able to join the team and watch practice as he followed concussion protocol. According to Lane Kiffin, Thomas will need to continue to follow medical protocols and must be cleared by medical professionals before he can practice.

“It was awesome that he was out there,” Kiffin said. “It’s a classic ‘you don’t appreciate things until they’re taken away’. It was a scary deal to watch. If you haven’t ever seen something like that, you can’t understand it. An 18, 19-year-old kid laying there and can’t feel anything is pretty scary.”

This week the Rebels have aimed to practice running the ball more consistently and getting more turnovers on defense. 

Ole Miss is beginning to do prep work as they look ahead to South Carolina.

“[South Carolina] has really good players on defense and run the ball really well on offense with a really good running back,” Kiffin said. “[A] good offensive line, they do a lot of movement up front on defense. Will [Muschamp] like always has recruited a lot of really good players.”

Kiffin and his staff want the players to focus on one game at a time.

“We did talk prior to last week and said ‘hey, let’s finish the last half of the season one of the hottest teams in the country that people don’t want to play’,” Kiffin said.