Intro Ole Miss is in a transformational period and Lane kiffin is trying to will us through the door we'll talk about how this is going some stuff we can get better with and talk about the future of the talent of the Ole Miss football program plus we break down Jeffrey rush and we also have our Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets preview should be a pretty good show stick around you are locked on Ole Miss daily podcast on the Ole Miss Rebels part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day thanks for making the lockdown on this podcast your first listen every day we're free and available wherever you get your podcast including YouTube Please Subscribe there also we're part of the lockdown podcast Network your team every day or more importantly Ole Miss every day hi I'm Stephen Willis I hope everybody had a good Fourth of July celebration I hope everybody was safe but this is the lockdown Ole Miss podcast Wednesday Edition and we have a chalk full show we're going to talk about the mindset of Ole Miss football we got a Georgia Tech preview ahead and we show video of Jeffrey Rush as well it's kind of long overdue but he kind of committed before we started showing videos so we can go back and get him as well as we start counting down to SEC media days which is about two weeks away we're pretty fired up about that anyway Lane kiffin is working desperately to change the mindset of Ole Miss's football fans of Ole Miss's athletic department of everything inside of Ole Miss Lane kiffin is actively trying to change that right now we have potentially the most talented roster that Ole Miss has ever had but you wouldn't know that if you talk to people on the um fan base they talk about where they're missing and stuff they still need and the same old conversations that people have had for 20 years they're having those now and this isn't Lane's fault this isn't the fans fault it's just a tradition of way of the way that you talk about certain issues now The Transfer Portal The Avenues that lane kiffin is having to go to get players and to increase the talent pool of the roster is a little bit unprecedented precedented and the transfer portal plays a huge part in it so much so that he anointed himself as the portal King in 2022 This was um I think it was shortly after Michael Trigg and Jackson dark committed to Ole Miss so you need to understand as Ole Miss fans that there aren't like wins and losses and things like that even when you miss out on a player within the transfer portal and in recruiting there's five other players that fit that need there is no true loss there is no true win you're excited when you get them but understand that there are groups of players and clusters of players at positions on the Ole Miss board at the moment one thing they talked about Mark schlabaugh everybody jumped on this portal King idea in 2022 and talked about how Lane kiffin had um and even fewer have had more success in the transfer portal than the Ole Miss Rebels coach so after landing USC quarterback Jackson Dart and tight end Michael Trigg over the weekend it was a little surprised that kiffin went to Twitter on Monday to declare himself the portal King and we still see that honestly you know little inside baseball whenever I put portal King in a video it has probably a hundred to two hundred more views than if I don't people say I harp on stuff too much times that's because they don't realize whenever I don't harp on it the videos don't do as well as when I do I know it gets on people's nerves from time to time and people might get fed up about it and they might say that I'm being repetitive from time to time but that doesn't change the fact that people watch it when I talk about it and the portal King is one of those topics that I can talk about I can pretty much go to and guarantee 1500 views on that video we're at the point where I can guarantee about a thousand views on a video of the lockdown Ole Miss podcast but if I had portal King I can guarantee 1500 views it's the weirdest thing and Lane kiffin has built this brand and Ole Miss fans have embraced this brand to the point where to prove it wasn't a flash in the pan he did it again this year only kiffin aka the portal king would hot sign highly recruit guarded transfers from USC starting for a season only to dip into the portal again to sign not one but two more highly regarded quarterback transfers a few weeks after the season ended so this is all built in for roster High School Signing Period Transformations now there is no minimum standard for signings our maximum standard that you can have in a year so the transfer portal if you have a player go out you have another player that can come in that's the way this works so last year in the year before there might have been limits of what you can do as far as the signing period not so much last year but not this year at all two years ago you absolutely did there was maximum limits of players that could sign they did away with that with temporary waivers so you're seeing now an uptick in the high school football class to go along with the transfer portal now many people are talking about how that is Lane kiffin just putting down roots and starting to do something more familiar I don't agree with that I genuinely don't agree with that I think Lane kiffin wants the best players available and he doesn't care if that is a three-star player in Louisiana if it is a five-star player in Mississippi or if it's a transfer from West Virginia he wants to find the best 85 players to fill this roster and to the point where you can look at it it's like hey does Ole Miss have the best quarterback room in the country that's not even a question we could ask previous to this the last time we had a quarterback room this stacked Glenn Griffin and those were in the perfect season ERA of 1962 when they were roaming the Halls almost has the best running back in the country he was a three-star running back out of Pike's um Pike City pike pike road something in Alabama I apologize about the high school name I just uh brain surgery moment but they've also added the best player of the last year in the state of Mississippi a consensus five-star plus type player recruited that high schooler to their roster so this is what I think is happening okay Lane kiffin is trying to build this roster up and he has a through line that he does and players either go above it or below it if they're above it Lane kiffin will recruit it if they're below it he won't and he doesn't care if they're a high school four star if they are a transfer portal Superstar if you can't fit on that chart exactly where he's put you he's not going to recruit you and Ole Miss fans need to do their part as well okay it's not just about Lane kiffin because Lane kiffin is by force of will trying to get the Ole Miss fan base into the next century and get them out of those old habits that die so hard those little Ole Miss or this player is not good we need to compete with this other school and any situation where that player commits you need to be either really up or really down about and you can't do that this roster is about constructing the best 85 players and it is never done even if you get a player even if you win a big deal like William Eckles just committed over the weekend huge big deal type thing I've heard stories that some people think he might be the best player in the state of Mississippi you can't celebrate overly that commitment because there are 84 other players that you need to find as well and you're always trying to get them and if somebody else commits to another school you're going to keep recruiting them unless you don't which is a red flag for that player anyway and you probably shouldn't have been recruiting to start with but that 85 and that talent that you're Little Ole Miss building in your roster can actually compete to the point where Ole Miss needs to start fighting for conference championships and SEC Championship Game appearances they've done sugar Bowls two sugar bowls in 10 years that is a good step for all this Ole Miss program but it is important that Ole Miss fans do not get into the Little Ole Miss mindset people need Ole Miss to get anything Little Ole Miss mindset and this isn't saying about unrealistic expectations this is just about pidging hole in you and putting you in a box in the air of when college football is completely changing schools like Boise State okay it's for people that want to do the Little Ole Miss Thing people like Boise State through their use of the rules their Advent of rpos and package type plays were able to become a major force in the mid-2000s it wasn't because of their athletic budget there wasn't necessarily because of their coach it was because they were doing something that somebody else wasn't and Ole Miss fans kind of needs to get out of the way because they have a coach that is an early adopter and if you let him work and let him do what he needs to do he will take you where you want to go as long as he is here people look at the end of last season and think that was some sort of a failure at the end of the last year I view the end of last year as sabotage more than a lack of talent issue the Alabama game was probably more of an indicator of where Ole Miss football was but that Arkansas game all of that stuff went on through that week in the Mississippi State week it affected practices all of those games in the last three kind of stood out so we will see exactly how they operate once the season starts and we're doing our wins and losses you know today is the Georgia Tech preview we're going to talk about that but this almost fan base they're being pulled almost Kicking and Screaming into the 21st Century Lane kiffin through sheer force of will is trying to get Ole Miss into a position where they are they modernize college football in the state of Mississippi and to do that it doesn't matter what other people do it's truly a take care of yourself moment and the talent and the coaching and everything that's in position if we take care of it results will come now I'm gonna put this up real quick while I'm talking at the moment and I do want to let you know the Grove The Grove Collective Collective this is the address for the Grove Collective you can sign up for that now if you are looking at a way that you can help they have a subscription program of twenty dollars a month and you can actually participate in the acquisition of talents and making sure those players are taken care of Walker Jones does a tremendous job he is a leader in this program he's talked to Congress as far as collectives go there's not many people that you could have better position than Walker Jones to be a collective leader so go to thegrovecollective.com sign up for a subscription service and help Ole misses nil program if you don't mind all right I do want to let you know that Today's Show is brought to you by FanDuel and take a swing at betting MLB on FanDuel and get 10 times your first bet about Mount in bonus bets up to 200 that's right just 20 bucks and you'll land two hundred dollars back in bonus bet win or lose that's 200 you can spend on everything from the money line to the over under to who you think is going to be hit the first home run it's all on an app that is super secure and easy to use and plus when you win you get paid instantly yes I realized that Mississippi is a brick and mortar Casino state where if you want to gamble on Sports gambling issues you have to go to a casino but if you are in Tennessee or in Louisiana you can take advantage of the FanDuel Sports app as well um New Orleans if you go down for the two-lane game Baton Rouge Shreveport Delta Louisiana you can hit it up there if you're in Tennessee Memphis Jackson Nashville Tennessee Gatlinburg Tennessee you can use the FanDuel Sportsbook app so sign up today and visit fanduel.com locked on to get two hundred dollars back in bonus bets that's fanduel.com locked on FanDuel an official partner of Major League Baseball that is pretty cool indeed and I'm pretty fired up about what's going on um with the FanDuel Sports app and whenever football season finally gets here which by the way two months from right now we will be inside Locked on Ole Miss football season and we are going to do things where we do the odds we have a whole show line up to where game week we handle game week I think better than anybody else I love what we do I love how we do it but if you want to follow and talk about Ole Miss football and pay attention to fun stuff that you can really sink your teeth into join us there anyway thanks for making the locked on Ole Miss podcast your first listen every day we're free and available wherever you get your podcast including YouTube part of the lockdown podcast Network every day is tonight on the show Pratt Rogers and we are going to talk some buy and sell we're going to do a bunch of stuff with recruits in the Ole Miss system we're going to talk about that so join that as well your team every day or more importantly Ole Miss every day all right now one thing that we need to look at is Jeffrey rush now we started doing this after Jeffrey Rush committed so Jeffrey Rush didn't get a segment and the Ole Miss fan base you know a lot of people don't know about this player now Jeffrey Rush is a top shelf profile type player Jeffrey Rush there he is on the on three consensus he is 184 he is the 22nd rated defensive lineman in the country he's the sixth rated player in the state of Mississippi on 247 he is the 57th player in the country and ESPN he is 134 Rivals he's just a four star and on threes just a three-star I don't know how what what to think about that now one thing that you need to take into mind okay one thing you need to take care of and one thing you need to think of is with Jeffrey Rush he is a defensive end and a solid Edge player out of Pascagoula jemonte Waller is going to get a ton of Pub he just is khmerion Franklin is going to get a ton of pub and Ole Miss is going to try like hook to get khmerion Franklin for sure maybe both of them but I don't think people need to sleep on Jeffrey Rush okay when you look at his highlights you're dealing with somebody that has he's pretty impressive off the ball off the line of scrimmage and his get off is pretty top shelf and he's able to rush the passer now one thing that I was wondering about whenever you look at this defensive line that Ole Miss is kind of piecing together through the high school ranks is is Jeffrey Rush a quick twitch Jack type player or is he more of a Marcus Tillman type defensive lineman using somebody from when I was at Ole Miss um that Ole Miss can kind of lean on somebody that has a heavy workload the solid defensive end really good football player but not that really Twitchy Greg Hardy type and the more I watch him there's plays that are made his get off is really good he is a very Twitchy athlete and essentially to quote Brian Smith that he walked on um recruiting guy this guy's a horse this is a guy that plays in the backfield more times than not he's the guy that affects the quarterback every time he snaps the football he has to be accounted for now we will see what he will look like once he lines up against SEC level offensive lineman will he be that same Twitchy guy or will he be more that stable guy so it'll be really interesting to see exactly how that goes anyway this is not surprising I do I say this almost every commitment that Ole Miss gives I but I really like this player I think he is going to provide a little bit of an Avenue that helps Ole Miss on the defensive line moving forward right now on the defensive line you have Jeffrey Rush defensive end solid absolutely solid Cameron beavers defensive lineman out of Base Springs solid really solid and then you have William Eckles who some people claim could be the best player in the college football or in the secian state of Mississippi sorry about that and they're also still recruiting camarion Franklin if you get that four you have completely in one class remade your defensive line and I don't care what anybody says that class is a win it doesn't matter what you do elsewhere that class is a win because you have made SEC quality players available across your defensive line that defensive line is going to get better and all of a sudden that team that we're hoping defensively just gets the ball back just takes the ball away all of a sudden the defense is making real plays and gives the offense that comfort and that security blanket that they need pretty good anyway when we come back Georgia Tech Preview we have a Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket preview stick around Don Ole Miss podcast today we're going to start talking about Georgia Tech it's a game that I think Ole Miss 142 to nothing and it was a pure steamrolling at Bobby Dodd Stadium in 2022. now this is a game that if you look in my library if you go back to last summer we talked about Ole Miss playing Georgia Tech and why Georgia Tech is not in the SEC right now because they tried to get Georgia Tech in the SEC but Ole Miss and Mississippi state was against it because there was a rivalry that developed between John Howard Vaught and Bobby Dodd in the 1940s and 50s it led to Georgia Tech once they got out of the SEC basically Ole Miss and Mississippi State saying no take backsies so go back and check that video out as well but this game has a chance to be pretty interesting because they've changed some change some stuff that is pretty interesting and well now they went five Georgia Tech Changes and seven last year and four and four in the SEC which shocks me as bad as that team was at the beginning of the year Brent key has got hired as the head coach Buster Faulkner is the new offensive coordinator um the reason I mention that is he is a cousin of Corey Burton who is my partner in crime on SEC after dark says it's been totally forgotten over the last four years and most of the last six but Georgia Tech is supposed to win college football games it's so great whenever they say that I love that lead now the key to the season is Accord of this is to find the running game they have crazy weird records when they don't rush for 150 yards in the game so when Ole Miss's defense Pete Golding has his work cut out for it because if they don't rush for 150 yards they don't win the game now some of that is the fact that Paul Johnson was so run heavy and basically if you held that triple option offense under 150 yards they weren't beating you but if you go back to 2006 they're one in 36 when failing to get to 150 Russian yards so that is pretty interesting as well now if you look at the best transfers that they had had him up earlier but um they got a linebacker in from Minnesota Jeff Sims has moved to Nebraska that's an interesting situation with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets now we are going to talk a little bit about how that Georgia Tech Could Be an Effective unit against Ole Miss because I do worry that Ole Miss after they just completely demolished Georgia Tech in Atlanta last season there might be a little bit of a hangover and I do think whenever you look at it it's Mercer it's that Tulane it is Georgia Tech at home and then it's at Alabama the Trap game in that scenario is Georgia Tech because everybody is going to point to the road game at New Orleans against Tulane everybody is going to point at the road game and Tuscaloosa at Alabama that Georgia Tech is just kind of there so the potential is there for this to be a much more difficult game than the Tulane game was and much more difficult than anybody should give it credit for now early in the season like I said they've lost Jeff Sims I think Zach pyron is the quarterback coming back he's going to compete with Haynes King the transfer from Texas A M we all know about Haynes that position will be a key position on the field because without quarterback play in modern college football we can know that it is going to be a struggle for whoever is going up against anybody it just is but that is something you need to pay attention to you need to pay attention on where they sit on Ole Miss's schedule the game before and the game after Georgia Tech is the sandwich game with power five athletes to where it could be dangerous think Tulsa of last year but with power five athletes that's what could happen in Vaude Hemingway before they go off to Alabama and second of all you could have a situation where Brent key has this team just plucky to where they want to go that where they want to play football at a very high level they're kind of jazzed up about this game they're ready to go it's early in the season now if you look at their Ole Miss Schedule games that they have they open the season conference game September 1st I believe that is a Friday against Louisville the following Saturday they have a tune-up game against South Carolina state and then they come to Oxford then they have Wake Forest so they get into it in a hurry they just do now if you want to look at the FBI from ESPN ESPN is saying that Ole Miss has an 89.2 chance of winning the game and a 10.8 percent chance of losing the game there's obviously not a very high probability um with Ole Miss now I do think looking at Ole Miss's schedule and wins and losses I think Ole Miss wins mercer at Tulane and I think they're going to beat Georgia Tech if they don't it's a problem if the foamus starts anything but 3-0 it's a problem going into the season if you're looking for something to point at it everything is going wrong it is probably that they're starting something other than 3-0 after this game and starting tomorrow we're going to start talking about Alabama we're going to start talking about LSU SEC games begin tomorrow from this list but Ole Miss starting 3-0 going to Alabama that game is probably on CBS that game is probably viewed at um by a ton of people as an exciting type game for the Ole Miss Rebels I'm expecting a CBS type game 2 30 in the afternoon at Alabama Lane kiffin probably shouldn't say get your popcorn ready but that is absolutely um something that we need to do we need to get that popcorn ready honestly so that is what I think we're going to do through three games I do think 3-0 Pro the preview that is that is more than attainable now it gets real and now is going to determine how Ole Miss can move forward now I'm looking at this and I'm like hey Ole Miss is probably going to win a game that they're not supposed to win and they're probably going to lose one that they are and whenever you look at how this season goes out that is going to happen so I'm going to try and guess how that happens but I do think Ole Miss will be in a very good shape after three games going to Tuscaloosa and Jackson Dart and all of this team will be in really good shape because we're not going to get into the breakdown right now but Alabama's looking at a new quarterback um Will Anderson is gone new defensive coordinator new offensive coordinator new positions all over the field the offense is going to look completely different the defense is going to look completely different all of this is coming together for a September game with the Ole Miss Rebels against somebody that has been a top 10 offense in the country over the last year I'm already excited about talking about the Ole Miss Alabama game so I'll be happy to talk about that tomorrow as well tonight on the show Pratt Rogers is going to talk we're going to do a little buy and sell in the recruiting game tune in for that but I do want to thank everybody for tuning in and making the lockdown on this podcast your first listen every day we're free and available wherever you get your podcast including YouTube subscribe there we're part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day I have my shirt on and everything I've been partying and having a good time on the 4th of July when I recorded this hope everybody enjoys it Tunes in tune in for a little bit more normal shows moving forward anyway take care we'll see you tomorrow [Music] [Applause] thank you