Which Ole Miss players are important to the 2024 College Football Playoff race?

Dog days of August are upon us and preseason camp is at the midpoint of its second week for Ole Miss as it continues tuning up for the program’s most-anticipated season in decades.

Part of the anticipation is the fact the Rebels are continuously among the teams mentioned for this season’s College Football Playoffs race. The expanded format is providing them the entry to the conversation but as things stand now the added eight teams to the field does not feel like a needed factor.

Monday saw the Preseason Coaches Poll released and Ole Miss was ranked No. 6 — the highest preseason ranking in that poll since 2009 — putting it just outside the Top 4, making the team a contender for the original format.

Next week the Associated Press releases its preseason poll and the Rebels should be around the same spot inside the Top 10.

But with 12 spots up for grabs starting with this season’s CFP it leads to a plethora of teams that can make a run for the postseason and a chance at a national title.

On Wednesday ESPN revealed its 25 most important players in this year’s CFP race and Ole Miss has a couple key guys make the cut. Quarterback Jaxson Dart is considered the sixth most-important player and defensive tackle Walter Nolen the 13th most-important.

For Dart, earning such a high placement in the rankings is due to surviving two quarterback battles and emerging as the guy in Lane Kiffin‘s offense this season. The weapons in Tre Harris, Jordan Watkins, Juice Wells and Caden Prieskorn to just name a few also boosts Dart’s ranking.

“I think at the end of the day I just saw the possibilities of what could be,” Dart said during a recent appearance on Marty & Magee. “The conversations in the house between the coaches and the players around me and a lot of guys that were on that same bubble that I was trying to decide whether to come back or to go to (the NFL).

“I love Ole Miss. I love Oxford. I love the community. I feel like the program took me in at a crucial part of my life and I’ve learned so much from my experience being here. I felt like it was only right to give it one more crack at it.”

Nolen is an important piece of the Ole Miss defense and one that should elevate that side of the ball.

ESPN’s No. 1 recruit in the 2022 class, Nolen showed what potential is there in two seasons at Texas A&M. Viewed as the crown jewel of Kiffin’s transfer class this past offseason Nolen is one of the pieces Ole Miss was lacking against the Georgias and Alabamas at the line of scrimmage.

Through a week and a half of Fall camp and not a lot of media viewing time it is hard to gauge the impact Nolen is going to have or the progress made in learning Pete Golding’s defense, which Princely Umanielen characterized as the “toughest” he has had to learn.

If the Rebels are to stay in the CFP race beyond their non-conference slate and past mid-October when they begin the meat of their Southeastern Conference schedule the defensive front is going to have be playing at an elite level. Hence why Nolan is viewed so highly as a key player to affect this year’s CFP race.

ESPN listed offensive line transfer Nate Kalepo as a potential candidate for the most important non-quarterback transfers portion of its rankings.

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