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Ole Miss

Lane Kiffin blows up on officials over Jaxson Dart no call

On3 imageby: Andrew Graham10/08/23AndrewEdGraham
NCAA Football: Arkansas at Mississippi
Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin was irate with officials over a no-call in the 2nd quarter of Saturday night’s game between the Rebels and Arkansas. It all began when his quarterback, Jaxson Dart, took off on a scramble.

Dart closed in on the Ole Miss sideline right near Kiffin. And as he crossed the boundary out of bounds, an Arkansas defender gave Dart a shove in the back.

While the quarterback didn’t fall down and was no worse for wear, he did careen into some teammates and staffers, and Kiffin was boiling over at the lack of a late-hit penalty flag.

To cap it off, Ole Miss ended up punting on a series that otherwise would’ve been extended by the penalty call.

As the Ole Miss punt unit came on the field, the boos rained down, not for the decision to kick but that the officials didn’t throw the flag to keep the drive going.

Ultimately, Dart wasn’t any worse off and the Rebels managed to stretch the lead to 17-7 before the half.

On the other side of the field, Sam Pittman was torn about his teams early performance

It was an uneven first quarter-plus of play for Sam Pittman’s Arkansas squad on the road at Ole Miss. Trailing 10-7 early in the 2nd quarter, Pittman was trying to hang on to the good while ironing out the bad.

He explained to SEC Network sideline reporter Alyssa Lang that he’s pleased with how the defense has played, but they’ve been put in tough spots. As for the offense, Pittman said the blocking needs to get better.

“That whole first series we didn’t do a great job of blocking, we just made plays. Defense is playing really well if we don’t put them in bad situations. We’ve gotta find a way to score and hopefully our defense can keep them out of scoring,” Pittman said.

The good news for Pittman is that since he spoke with Lang, the defense stymied the Ole Miss offense. But so far, the offense has yet to come to life against the Rebels defense.