‘We want a national championship’: Jaxson Dart is not shying away from Ole Miss expectations

Walking around the practice fields outside of John L. Guidry Stadium on the campus of Nicholls State University during the Manning Passing Academy helps reinforce one theme for 2024: Ole Miss and Jaxson Dart are among the elite now.

Dart spent this past weekend serving as a counselor for the 28th edition of the MPA and he was among his contemporaries and some of the top quarterbacks for the upcoming season. Georgia’s Carson Beck, Texas’ Quinn Ewers and Alabama’s Jalen Milroe headlined the list of 47 quarterbacks in attendance.

Dart was right there among the marquee names and for good reason with Ole Miss firmly in the mix to be a contender for the College Football Playoffs and Dart a Heisman favorite heading into the preseason.

The expectations have only grown since December after Ole Miss beat Penn State in the Peach Bowl, finished in the Top 10, had strong roster retention and another top transfer class.

Dart was among those to return for a final season and spent the spring and summer downtime working with is receivers. Throughout the summer workouts Ole Miss is embracing and not running from the loud outside noise.

“The motivation is we want a national championship,” Dart told The Ole Miss Spirit on Friday in Thibodaux, Louisiana.

“I mean, that’s the way that we see it day in and day out. It’s something that gets brought up on a daily basis and something that we truly believe we can achieve this year. So, that’s the motivation.”

Ole Miss is aiming for its first national title in 62 years after winning a national championship in 1959, 1961 and 1962.

Since then it has been quiet on the national title and Southeastern Conference title front.

Head coach Lane Kiffin has embraced and adopted former Alabama head coach Nick Saban’s philosophy on expectations, hype and positive bulletin board material by categorizing it all as “rat poison.”

Over the first four seasons of Kiffin’s tenure at Ole Miss the approach has trickled down throughout the locker room with players also brushing those types of comments and questions aside and not acknowledging them.

But Dart, and seemingly his teammates, are welcoming the new bar of success with open arms. The senior quarterback is was not shying away from acknowledging the expectations of 2024 when standing in the thick, Louisiana Summer heat.

“I just think that it’s something that we’re super passionate and confident about right now,” Dart said. “The reason I’ve said it all along is it’s the reason why so many of us decided to come back for another year. Then the guys coming in, I mean why would you leave a school and come to a new school without the expectation of winning a national championship. It’s the mindset we have from a player’s perspective as well as a coach’s perspective.”

Rat poison may still be lingering in the locker room but a new mindset appears to be replacing it for the dubbed ‘Last Dance’ that is the Ole Miss 2024 football season.

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