Football Practice Report: Week 5

OXFORD, Miss. – The Ole Miss football team is amid its first week of game preparation for SEC play as Lane Kiffin’s Rebels look to host Kentucky at 11 a.m. CT on Saturday for their conference opener at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

The Rebels are off to a 4-0 start and lead the nation in both scoring offense and scoring defense, but the level of competition ratchets up now with league play beginning. Kiffin spoke on that in his weekly press conference on Monday. Brandon Turnage, Antwane Wells Jr., Trey Amos and Trey Washington all met with the media this week as well, which can be found below.

“Excited about this matchup,” Kiffin said. “Very good program in Kentucky. Very well-coached. They play very physical. It’s an 11 a.m. kick, which our guys are used to practicing in the morning and getting up, so excited for that, excited for our fans who were awesome last week.”

Toughest Test Yet
Ole Miss had a nice ramp-up schedule to start 2024. The Rebels opened with an FCS foe in Furman, followed by a visit from a small-conference FBS school in Middle Tennessee. Ole Miss then aced its first power-conference test with a 40-6 win at Wake Forest of the ACC. After topping Georgia Southern last week, a completely new challenge awaits.

“This is going to be very challenging,” Kiffin said. “They took Georgia down to the wire, ran for over 200 yards against Georgia. These guys are really good, and they’re motivated to play.”

Kentucky already holds an 0-2 SEC record with a 31-6 loss to South Carolina and a 13-12 loss to Georgia, both at home. The Wildcats nearly pulled off the upset of the top-ranked Bulldogs but fell just short in a one-point defeat, and Kiffin knows they have the talent to win on Saturday if Ole Miss doesn’t play up to its standard.

“They have really good length on defense, great size,” Kiffin said. “So they’re able to play with Georgia at home. It’s happened to us, it’s happened to a lot of people, when you don’t have size and length on defense, you struggle with Georgia and Alabama before that. They very much look like an NFL defense, from a structure and size standpoint, and coverages and techniques. That’s why teams struggle against them. Games seem a lot more like NFL games. It’s hard to make yards, it’s hard to run the ball.”

Turn of Events
Brandon Turnage dreamt about pulling down his first interception in an Ole Miss uniform the night before the Georgia Southern game. He also had a request for an interception from his biggest fan, and it all came true when the Oxford native came through with an INT against the Eagles.

“It felt great,” Turnage said. “I dreamed about it the night before and somehow it just came. Pretty bad decision by the quarterback and I said I might as well just make this play. I was so excited. It’s been a minute since I got an interception. I knew my daughter was proud. Before every game she tells me to go get an interception, and I made it happen. I was real proud.”

Ole Miss marks Turnage’s third stop in the SEC, going from Lafayette High School to Alabama, then Tennessee before coming back to his hometown for his final season. Regardless of that first INT, Turnage is happy to be part of one of the nation’s best defenses as he closes his collegiate career.

“It’s been great,” Turnage said. “We play fast, we play real physical. Who doesn’t want to be a part of a defense like that? As a defensive back, it makes you feel great when everybody is flying to the ball. We can just cover our guys, but they have us aggressive to the run as well. So I love it.”

Explosive and Fast
Another SEC transfer, former South Carolina Gamecock Juice Wells, is having just as much fun on the other side of the ball. Wells has a touchdown catch in all four games this season and continued his streak last week with a scoring haul on just the second play of the game. The stunning first drive wasn’t so stunning to Wells himself.

“The way we practice, we’re so explosive, anything can happen. We could’ve scored on the first play, honestly. If Tre had a little more burners, he could’ve probably caught that little crease and went through there,” Wells said. “So it’s nothing I don’t expect. I expect stuff like that, especially from this offense.”

With the combination of Wells, Tre Harris, Jordan Watkins and Cayden Lee at receiver, Ole Miss leads the nation in passing, scoring and total offense. Ole Miss is the only team in the nation with three receivers in the top 90 in receiving yards nationally with Harris No. 2, Wells No. 71 and Lee No. 89. The Rebels are the only team with two of the SEC’s top 10 receivers and three of its top 15.

“If I could say a word to describe that room and this offense is explosive. And fast,” Wells said. “We try to get up on teams as fast as we can. I had a false start on that play, and it just goes to show how fast we’re moving. I’ve got to do a better job of getting lined up faster but I definitely describe it as explosively fast.”

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