Ole Miss Holds Fall Camp Scrimmage

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

Ole Miss football held its first scrimmage camp on Saturday inside the Vaught.

Head coach Lane Kiffin met with the media at the conclusion and said careful review of the game film would be necessary before making any player decisions.

“We Don’t make a lot of evaluations out there off the scrimmages until we go watch it,” Kiffin said. “There are a lot of guys getting to play out there and this is the first chance of seeing guys tackle.”

Kiffin added that there are a number of new players on the roster, which was an important component of the scrimmage.

The play of the first-string defensive line caused the offensive line to have some problems.

“In pass-rush situations, we had some issues there again today,” Kiffin said. “We’re not game-planning against our defense. That’s a good problem for us to have on the other side defensively because in my opinion we’ve not had a good rusher across the board quality in the two years we’ve been here.

“We’ve had some good ones, but not all the way across the board with depth,” Kiffin said. “It’s good because that’s a hard position to recruit. It’s a hard position to turn around.”

On the defensive line, the Rebels added Oxford native JJ Pegues out of the transfer portal. He played the last two seasons at Auburn.

“JJ stood out the entire camp and did a good job in the spring,” Kiffin said. “He’s really improved and in my opinion, he’s got a chance to be a really big-time defensive tackle in this league that’s had a million of them, and is better than any conference. [JJ] got a chance to do that.”

In the scrimmage, quarterbacks Jaxson Dart, Luke Altymer and Kinkead Dent got reps.

“The first two guys (Altymer and Dart) took too many sacks and even though we’re not hitting them, those would have been sacked,” Kiffin said. “I thought Kinkead played really well.”

During the scrimmage, JJ Henry continued to shine in camp.

“JJ has really done a great job in taking it to another level,” Kiffin said. “I like that because it is an example of a guy that stays and doesn’t play as much as they like. He stayed and worked through some challenges and outperformed really well.”

Ole Miss kicks off the 2022 season on Sept. 3, inside the Vaught against Troy.