Ole Miss will play in the Grove Bowl on Saturday. The Grove Bowl, the football team’s spring game, will be the first time that recent transfer portal additions and early enrollees take the field for an organized game. With a lot of roster and coaching staff turnover on the team, Saturday looks to be an exciting day from top to bottom.
Early Enrollees
Jayvontay Conner, TE: With a relatively small amount of football experience, Conner could be a steal. Though he was just a three-star, he boasted 45 offers from schools such as Oregon, Miami, FSU and Penn State. Conner is more of a power-slot right now but could develop into a true Y tight end.
AJ Brown, S: Namesake aside, Brown has a chance to make his own legacy in the powder blue. After this season, Ole Miss will be very light at safety and Brown could be a starter in just his sophomore season. He should play as a traditional deep safety. Specifically keep an eye on how well he comes up and tackles.
Cayden Lee, WR: Lee was another three-star whose offer sheet overshadowed his rankings. Ayden Williams is obviously the big fish WR pull from 2023, but I love Lee’s game. He could end up being a steal and playing a really strong complementary role in the next few seasons as Williams and Marshall look to become high draft picks.
Braxton Myers, DB: Myers has the chance to play either safety or cornerback in college. He has a naturally long and strong build, which can allow him to excel as the longer and more physical style of CB that defensive coordinator Pete Golding likes to have. He could fight for time as a true freshman.
Brycen Sanders, OL: The most vocal member of the 2023 class, Sanders is about as safe a prospect as they come. It’s rare for offensive lineman to play as a freshman, but I expect Sanders to develop into a multi-year starter. His only path to early playing time is as a true center, which the Rebels did not have last year.
What to Look for
Center? As briefly mentioned above, Ole Miss does not really have a guaranteed center. Last year, Ole Miss tried a couple guys at the position but failed to get consistently placed snaps. This may not seem like a critical issue, but low/high snaps hurt an offense’s ability to run jet sweeps and similar motions.
If that issue persists on Saturday, I would like to see Ole Miss target whoever ends up transferring from Michigan. (They’ve probably got seven interior offensive lineman who would start at Ole Miss.)
Who emerges at cornerback? Deantre Prince is the incumbent starter, but mid-year enrollees Zamari Walton, John Saunders and Myers will look to compete for a starting spot. All four should be able to see significant time, and it will be a huge point of emphasis in determining who has picked up the playbook and developed well.
Who’s looking good at QB? I have always been a Jaxson Dart fan. I think (and hope) that he beats out Spencer Sanders at some point this offseason. Sanders is obviously the known commodity, but his ceiling has consistently been pretty low. Dart offers an elite skill set, a lot of heart and, according to sources in the program, a lot of progression from last year. Walker Howard is just eye-candy this year, but it will be nice to see what he can do in the early showcase.
Please Don’t Overreact
This is the spring game. Not Week 1, not an SEC game. The spring game. It’s a showcase to get some chemistry between the new guys … that’s mostly it. The only things that can really be taken away from this is individual performances.
Both sides of the ball will be using seriously limited playbooks, so expect a very vanilla coaching performance. If the offense struggles to move the ball, that’s probably because the defense has seen all the plays about 6,000 times in the last few weeks.
The Grove Bowl will take place on Saturday, April 15, at 2 p.m. CDT.
