Lane Kiffin evaluates backup quarterback Luke Altmyer's performance in Sugar Bowl

Freshman quarterback Luke Altmyer was tasked with the impossible on Saturday: seamlessly succeed a soon-to-be first-round NFL Draft pick in the first meaningful playing time of his collegiate career and save Ole Miss’ season.

Matt Corral, Ole Miss’ quarterback, entered Ole Miss’ Sugar Bowl matchup against Baylor having completed 68.3 percent of his passes for 3,333 yards, 20 touchdowns and just four interceptions. He was also a frequent contributor on the ground, rushing for 597 yards and 11 more touchdowns. Corral had established himself as one of the nation’s best quarterbacks, a sure-fire first-round draft pick with nothing left to prove, but he still opted to play one last game for the Rebels rather than opt out of the Sugar Bowl. Late in the first quarter, Corral — who, at the time, had completed just two of six passing attempts for 10 yards and an interception — left the field after suffering an ankle injury, leaving Altmyer at the helm of Ole Miss’ offense.

Altmyer, a true freshman, has appeared in just three games this season, primarily garbage-time minutes, save for one drive against Auburn during which Corral nursed a separate ankle injury. He entered the game having completed five of just nine passing attempts for all year, good for 18 passing yards.

“I thought Luke did some good things once he got playing a little bit and made some out-of-rhythm plays running around,” Kiffin said of Altmyer after Ole Miss’ 21-7 loss to Baylor. “It’s a hard setting.”

A hard setting indeed, Altmyer was unable to recover from a pick-six at the end of his first full drive under center. Though Ole Miss eventually lost to Baylor, gained valuable experience in relief of Corral, completing 15-of-28 passing attempts for 174 passing yards, one touchdown and two interceptions.

“That’s a really great defense. They give a lot of people problems. Not many people score a lot of points,” Kiffin said of Baylor, which held an explosive Ole Miss offense to just 322 yards of total offense and 6-of-22 third-down conversion attempts. “Like I said coming into this, this would be like an NFL game, I thought, more low scoring. You are going to have to protect the football, play field position at times — which we were not really aggressive in the fourth-down stuff because of that.”

Altmyer, a native of Starkville, opted to attend Ole Miss rather than his hometown college of Mississippi State. He was rated a four-star recruit via the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies, making him the No. 26 quarterback in the 2021 class and No. 5 recruit in the state of Mississippi.