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Ole Miss QB Austin Simmons among the 40 most important players for 2025 season

11by: Jake Thompson08/05/25JakeThompsonOn3
NCAA Football: Mississippi at Arkansas
Nov 2, 2024; Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA; Ole Miss Rebels quarterback Austin Simmons (13) during the fourth quarter against the Arkansas Razorbacks at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium. Mississippi won 63-31. Mandatory Credit: Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images

There is a lot going to be asked of Austin Simmons as he prepares to lead Ole Miss in the first season of the post-Jaxson Dart era. The expectations are tempered but still high as he as been a touted prospect since he arrived in Oxford ahead of the 2023 season.

The pressure and expectations are seemingly growing with each day that falls off the calendar and the 2025 campaign inches closer. Tuesday’s list released by ESPN only adds to it.

An article naming the 40 most important players for 2025 was put out by ESPN.com’s Bill Connelly and Simmons finds himself high on the list. The Ole Miss quarterback is slotted at No. 15.

Simmons is part of a grouping Connelly labeled ‘Young/inexperienced/new QBs with both spoiler and contender potential.’ He is one of five quarterbacks in the group and all are from the Southeastern Conference.

The Rebels signal caller falls under Connelly’s opinion of “If [insert quarterback here] is awesome, [insert mid-level contender here] becomes a serious contender for a CFP bid.”

Joining Simmons in the group is South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers (No. 11), Florida’s DJ Lagway (12), Oklahoma’s John Mateer (13) and Texas A&M’s Marcel Reed (14).

The buzz for Ole Miss is growing as the Fall camps get underway the regular season gets a day closer. On Monday the Rebels landed at No. 15 in the preseason Coaches Poll. The Associated Press preseason poll will come out on August 11.

Sixth-year head coach Lane Kiffin is one that is trying to instill calmness into Simmons, making sure the redshirt sophomore is not trying to emulate Dart’s record-setting performance from last season in his first year as a SEC starting quarterback.

“Yeah, they’re very different,” Kiffin said last month at SEC Media Days. “I mean, if you look at how they throw right-hand, left-hand, that would basically be about everything about them, like everything is that different. That’s okay. He’s just got — Austin has to make sure he doesn’t have to try to be Jaxson. Jaxson wasn’t Jaxson the third year of Jaxson until he was a third year.”

Simmons is already making this Ole Miss team into his own with one-on-one work this Summer.

One thing he did emulate Dart on is taking the wide receivers to Florida to get some work in and start building up chemistry in the passing game. Dart would take his receivers to California over the Summer break.

With a room that returned only Cayden Lee there is a lot of transfers and true freshman in the room Simmons has to get comfortable with, and vice versa.

So far that has gone well, so much so that Kiffin viewed that as potentially the biggest strength of the team.

“It’s definitely growing. Like, compared to where we were in the Spring,” Simmons told Rebel Grove last week. “I definitely see the chemistry stronger than what it was before. Seeing how these guys are more savvy now as a unit and really building that whole connection. That whole chemistry between all of us and it’s been great.”

Ole Miss opens the season on August 30 against Georgia State at 6:45 p.m. CT on SEC Network.

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