Here's what we learned about Ole Miss from the 2023 Grove Bowl
Apr. 15—OXFORD — The Red team scored a two-point conversion with no time on the clock Saturday afternoon to defeat the Navy team 53-52 in Ole Miss' 2023 Grove Bowl at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
Each team was drafted to their respective rosters. Several of last year's starting offensive linemen, returning leading receiver senior Jordan Watkins, star sophomore running back Quinshon Judkins and incumbent starting quarterback junior Jaxson Dart played with the Red team, while senior Oklahoma State transfer quarterback Spencer Sanders and junior tight end Michael Trigg headlined the Navy team. Last year's leading defenders were somewhat split between both teams.
Of note, of course, is the fluidity of depth charts in the spring and the fact that there were players held out — cornerback Deantre Prince, defensive end Cedric Johnson and offensive linemen Jeremy James and Jayden Williams did not play — or limited.
Here are three observations from Saturday's spring game.
The quarterback room is in a far better place than a year ago
Dart, Luke Altmyer and Kinkead Dent hit 49% of their throws in last year's Grove Bowl, with the former two hitting a combined 20 of 52 — a 38.5% completion rate. This year, the three main quarterbacks completed 62% of their passes with seven touchdown passes and just one interception.
"If you were here a year ago in the spring game, to me, you saw a position that looks a lot better than it did one year ago," Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin said.
Dart was the first quarterback for the Red team, and Sanders got the first reps with the Navy squad, which did not have any starting offensive linemen from last season play but did have Trigg — who had 138 receiving yards and a touchdown in the game — senior running back Ulysses Bentley IV and sophomore wide receiver J.J. Henry. Redshirt freshman LSU transfer Walker Howard saw reps with both teams.
Dart finished 18 of 37 for 302 yards and a touchdown; Sanders was 19 of 27 for 265 yards, three touchdowns, an interception, and a rushing touchdown; and Walker went 11 of 13 for 185 yards with three passing touchdown and a rushing score.
While he didn't get a chance to do any sort of full evaluation during the scrimmage, Kiffin offered his initial thoughts on the three signal callers.
"I thought all three guys made plays, made (plays) out of rhythm, competitive plays. I thought early there was some really good in-rhythm, timing plays, especially some passes to the backs," Kiffin said. " ... The idea was, in the offseason, to improve that room, make it competitive, bringing guys in. So, it's not just competitive, like everybody thinks, for the first spot. It just makes you have a better room.
"I made the analogy yesterday, when people say, 'Well, why do you go add these guys? Only one quarterback plays at a time?' And I said well, do you like having really good pitchers on a baseball team? You'd like to have more than one. So, I think it's really, really good that we have three guys that all did some really good things today."
Quinshon Judkins looks like a bigger threat in the passing game
Judkins was a first-team All-SEC selection last season after running for more than 1,500 yards and 16 touchdowns. He caught just 15 passes over 13 games for 132 yards and a touchdown, however. Yes, it was just the spring game, but Judkins did serious damage as a receiver Saturday, catching four passes for 44 yards and a touchdown.
"It's huge," Dart said. "He's two-dimensional, three-dimensional. He's a great blocker, he's obviously great in the run game, and he can catch the ball from the backfield. I feel like that's been something that he needed to improve on from last year, just little things. Like, where's your landmarks on checkdowns, and make sure you're getting your width. And he's been great at it this spring.
"And it's huge to see that from him, especially because he's just, he's so young. And, with how talented and how good he is already, I think that that's going to be something that brings his game to a whole other level."
Don't judge the defense quite yet
As great as the numbers were for the offenses — nearly 1,200 yards of offense combined and 105 total points between the Red and Navy teams, Pete Golding's debut as Ole Miss' defensive coordinator didn't appear to be a great one at first glance. That's not the case at all, however, according to Kiffin.
Not only were there key pieces missing, but, according to Kiffin, the defense was going to be behind the eight-ball the entire time.
"It's difficult to evaluate, because we don't let the defense run a lot of defense, and there's not a lot of scheme going on. The offense didn't listen quite as well to those commands and orders, kind of ran a lot of ... trick plays, and they were more competitive schematically with some things," Kiffin said. "And so, I would not judge the yardage.
" ... I'd rather create a spring game — and people (are) different because you saw some other ones over the last couple days where nobody scores — and it's really boring, nobody wants to watch. So, I'd rather go the other way and create some excitement for recruits to see, for people to watch. And so, we did that today, which isn't necessarily in the defense's advantage."
Kiffin also referenced a similar situation from earlier in his career — the spring game when he was head coach at Tennessee.
"I remember my dad and (Ed) Orgeron being pretty upset our first year at Tennessee when I only let them play like two defenses and not blitz, because it was our first spring game and I wanted to get the Tennessee fans excited. So, afterwards, I think we looked and we had like 800 yards of offense. So, my dad wasn't real happy. And, I reminded him, nobody's going to remember these spring games."
