Derrick Nix was given the opportunity to experience life as the Ole Miss head coach

Around 3 a.m. on Saturday Derrick Nix had to remind himself that fall camp is still in session and this was not opening week of the college football season. The Ole Miss wide receivers coach did so because for the last 24 hours or so he served as head coach of the Rebels.

Lane Kiffin stepped aside for the first scrimmage of camp and allowed his associate head coach to step into the shoes of a head coach and gain experience very few coaches like Nix get to opportunity to do.

For Kiffin the move was not one of public relations nature but more so giving a longtime member of the Ole Miss coaching staff the chance to be the guy for a day.

“That was really done to give (Nix) the opportunity to see what it’s like,” Kiffin said after Saturday’s scrimmage. “I remember my dad telling me a long time ago, ‘Be very grateful for what you have because this has not been a good profession at all for minorities.’

“He used to say all the time, ‘There’s more Tony Dungys, there’s more Lovie Smiths, there’s more Mike Tomlins that never get the opportunity.'”

Shortly after practice on Friday Nix took over the duties of a head coach. He held meetings with his coaching staff, which Kiffin was a part of by filling in for Nix as the receivers coach.

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Nix has been at Ole Miss for the last 16 years.

Twelve of those years Nix served as the running backs coach before shifting over to the wide receivers room. This year Nix was bumped to associate head coach by Kiffin.

“I had to remind myself that, ‘Hey, this is a scrimmage,'” Nix said. “I couldn’t sleep. When coach Kiffin gave me the news earlier that day the initial thought was pumped up, excited. Got in the staff meeting room and had what I wanted to say, but voice crackling because it was my peers. Got a chance to regroup with the coordinators and said, ‘hey lets put up a plan on what we want to do.’ …Obviously a lot to learn.”

Out of Nix’s professional career only one year has been spent outside of Mississippi when he served as the quality control coach on the Atlanta Falcons staff in 2007.

In 2003 Nix was a graduate assistant at Southern Miss before moving up to running backs coach of the Golden Eagles from 2004 to 2006.

“I had to remind myself that I didn’t graduate (at Ole Miss),” Nix said. “Sometimes I feel that way. I’m like, ‘Man, did I grow up here?’ Every now and then coach Kiffin will remind me and say, ‘You’re a Mississippian.’ …I grew up in Alabama but all my adult life has been here in Oxford or Hattiesburg. Ole Miss is basically family to my family.”

Between the Southeastern Conference and the Big 12 there are no minority head coaches.

A fact that hit Kiffin when he was discussing the decision to let Nix take over the controls for the scrimmage and the day leading up to it.

“That’s really unfortunate,” Kiffin said. “Not that I’m going to be able to change that but to give someone the opportunity to speak in front of the media, handle pregame meal, handle injury report. Go out there and kind of manage the scrimmage and make a mock game that way. I think it was really good for him. Again, you can’t see how good somebody is until you give them the chance to do it.”

This was the first step, at least where Ole Miss is concerned, is allowing a minority coach to get the chance to gain the experience Kiffin spoke of earlier.

Where Nix is concerned he only wanted to thank his head coach for opening that door. Even if it was just for 24 hours and a preseason game-esque environment.

“I think I’ve had a lot of great opportunities to do what I do and I’m very thankful for it,” Nix said. “Only way you overcome it is you got to have guys like Lane Kiffin give those guys opportunities. It’s not a true preseason game but it’s the closest thing we can do. You see it happen in the NFL right now and guys kind of get opportunities to showcase and just up their skillset and their assests that they bring to the table. I think it’s time. I think the door will continue to open up wider.”