Ole Miss will start finalizing its personnel this weekend when it switches to game week mode

Fall camp is nearly over for the Ole Miss football team with one last practice, at least that media can view, taking place on Thursday. From there the hay will be in the proverbial barn and the Rebels will hit the switch to shift to game week mode as the season opener is 10 days away.

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin has two scrimmages worth of film plus a slew of practice tape from this month’s camp to go through. When it pertains to paring down the roster to those who will be getting live reps come September 2 to those who will not, that process will start this weekend.

Creating a two-deep, or in some positions a three-deep, depth chart has not taken place nor even the process to do so. Ole Miss is still in preseason mode for at least a few more days then Kiffin will switch gears.

“I think that comes more this weekend coming up,” Kiffin said after Tuesday’s practice. “We’re kind of still in a training camp, practice mode as far as going against each other a lot with some Mercer stuff. I think we’ll have a much better feel of that starting next week.”

The first official depth chart of the regular season should be released on Monday ahead of Kiffin’s first press conference of the regular season. With the opening game of the season it should not come as a surprise if there are a lot of ‘ORs’ on the first depth chart.

Plenty of positions feel sorted out already when it comes to a pecking order but there are other positions that will have everyone’s attention when that first depth chart is released.

The Ole Miss offense is in a stronger spot exiting fall camp than it was at the start of it when it comes to depth across the board.

Throughout August Kiffin has praised the depth in key skill positions such as the tight ends group that in a better place now than in his previous three seasons with Ole Miss.

Despite some lingering injuries in the wide receivers room, starting with Jordan Watkins, the room is top-to-bottom deeper than in previous season where it has been more of a top-heavy position with depth.

“It’s much better in the skilled positions,” Kiffin said of depth. “The offensive line is not necessarily a big difference but a little better. At the skilled positions, especially tight end and receiver, I think we feel a lot better about our backups.”

Then there is of course the ongoing quarterback battle between Jaxson Dart and Spencer Sanders. Whether the feeling outside the Ole Miss locker room and coaches offices is that this battle is settled, Kiffin is saying otherwise out loud.

Last Saturday’s second and final scrimmage of camp showed Kiffin some positives from both quarterbacks, allowing him to still stay noncommittal in naming a starter days before week one of the regular season is here.

“I thought quarterback play was really, really strong Saturday,” Kiffin added. “I thought the week before the defense in general had a really good Saturday. I thought this Saturday the offense did with the pass scheme and running game. There were much more points, much more yards with the average per carry. I thought the quarterbacks did some really good things. Two older guys made significant plays they want to take back, but I saw some really good things. I think we’re in a great position with multiple guys that can go into a game and help us win.”

With an opponent such as Mercer serving as the season opener it would come as no shock if all four quarterbacks, including Walker Howard and Austin Simmons, all got reps of some number next Saturday.

The first true signal of who is the starter will probably not be shown until week two in New Orleans at Tulane.

The post Ole Miss will start finalizing its personnel this weekend when it switches to game week mode appeared first on On3.