Jaxson Dart embraced an uncomfortable spring at Ole Miss and went to work in the summer
When Jaxson Dart arrived on campus in January he was riding high as the odds on favorite to be the next Ole Miss starting quarterback. As May rolled around those emotions were vastly different.
Dart was one of the high-valued targets in the transfer portal that Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin managed to reel in and bring to Oxford. Coming from Southern California it was assumed by many — media included — Dart was the successor to another California kid.
At the conclusion of April’s Grove Bowl those same people were left scratching their head and realized Matt Corral’s heir was going to be a tighter competition than anticipated.
Dart struggled throughout March and April in spring drills and Luke Altmyer was finding success having already been in Kiffin’s system and coming off a season where he played in Corral’s absence a time or two.
Following spring practices Dart’s own thoughts were those of a player who just went through a crash course in another school’s system months after playing in an entirely different offense.
“Coming out of spring I’ll just say my comfort level in just the schematics of the system wasn’t all the way there,” Dart said. “So, I wanted to just try and get as many reps as I could, meet with coaches as many times. Just to expand my knowledge of the game in general but specifically our offense. For a quaterback to play at his very best he has to feel comfortable in the system.”
Related: Where does the Ole Miss quarterback competition stand in Charlie Weis Jr.’s eyes?
The writing was on the wall and hard for Dart to ignore. He was going to be in a battle with Altmyer to win the starting job.
There was no running away from it or pretending that was not the case. The evidence was there on film and for everyone in attendance last April to see with their own eyes. Altmyer played better than Dart, while Kinkead Dent tried to insert his name in the race.
Dart went to work, or continued to work, once spring concluded and the calendar turned to the summer months. Any available time Dart had was spent working on his own or with teammates.
“There were a lot of parts of our offense that I’ve never been able to experience before,” Dart said. “I’ve never really been in a play-action system, an RPO system, and we do a lot of those things here. We do a lot of tempo and with that comes a lot of being able to make quick decisions without really thinking through. The whole thing just has to kind of come to your head and you just have to roll fast.”
Dart was new to Ole Miss and its system but so was his co-offensive coordinator and quarterback coach in Charlie Weis Jr.
The pair were learning each other while Dart was trying to grasp Weis and Kiffin’s playbook in a four to five week span. The results show that was clearly a work in progress that would carry over to the summer and fall camp.
Preseason training camp is here and Dart has found his confidence while still trying to work through his comfort level of the system.
“Over the summer he did a great job of just making sure to continue to watch everything from the spring,” Weis said. “Learn from his past mistakes and take that and grow. So, I’m really excited to watch throughout fall camp how he improves each and every day.”
By no means does it mean Dart has grabbed a solid hold of the starting position through a couple days of fall camp.
With over four weeks until the season opener against Troy on Sept. 3 there is still a lot of time for Dart to show his is now comfortable in his new surroundings.
Related: ‘They’ll Make Each Other Better’: The Ole Miss quarterback race set to heat up at fall camp
