Why setting expectations for Ole Miss football in 2023 is hard for Lane Kiffin — and everyone else

Mississippi Clarion-Ledger
OXFORD — Ole Miss football coach Lane Kiffin is no rookie. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday at the onset of the Rebels' preseason practice period, Kiffin did not fall into the trap of expressing his goals for this season in the form of a win total.
Say you want to win nine games and fans will show their displeasure if you only win eight. Say you hope to win seven and your ticket sales representatives are going to be cursing you. It's just not a logical move.
"There's too many variables," Kiffin said. "You want to coach really well and play really well. And sometimes that means this many wins, and sometimes the ball hits the upright and doesn't go in or a ref misses a call."
Outside of Colorado ‒ where Deion Sanders has executed the college football equivalent of a hockey line change with his roster ‒ there's no team more different year-over-year than Ole Miss, which has seen 58 players come in or go out via the portal, according to On3's transfer portal rankings page.
Even at the onset of preseason practice, the Rebels are still expecting another pair of roster additions, with Miami's Chris Graves Jr. and Clemson's TJ Dudley committing to Ole Miss over the weekend.
This brings us to another variable for Kiffin ‒ and everyone else ‒ to consider as we try to settle on a sensible target for Ole Miss in 2023: With about half his roster, he doesn't know what he's going to get.
Most of that uncertainty is housed on the defense, where Kiffin has given the Rebels a complete makeover, overhauling the coaching staff to put former Alabama defensive coordinator Pete Golding in charge.
At one point in practice Wednesday, Golding sent out a defense of 11 players that included only one who signed with Ole Miss out of high school: Cedric Johnson.
"I haven't seen them perform together," Kiffin said. "New coordinator, a lot of new staff and a lot of brand new players. So, yeah, that's a concern. Now, I'm excited about the pieces – the coaches and the players – but that's a long way from them playing really well together and not blowing coverages and fitting every run right."
On offense, by far the more stable side of the ball in comparison, Kiffin will rely heavily on three transfer pass-catching options who have not yet played Power 5 football.
And if he knows who his quarterback is going to be, he isn't saying. Jaxson Dart and Oklahoma State transfer Spencer Sanders are the two contenders for that job, with Dart spending significantly more time with the first-team unit than Sanders did on Wednesday. That's consistent with what we saw in the spring. At least publicly, that's still a question mark.
"The blueprint to win over a long period of time is not to re-do your roster every year," Kiffin said, stating that he would prefer to build with high school recruits. "You're going to have ups and downs doing that. ...That is not an ideal way to do it. I'm just maximizing the situation we're in."
So, is 2023 going to be an up or down for the Rebels?
Even if Kiffin wanted to offer a guess, he might not know yet.