Lane Kiffin stepped to the podium at SEC Media Days on Monday, prepared to answer the usual round of preseason questions about his Ole Miss Rebels.

But first, he had something else to say.

The Ole Miss coach began his question-and-answer session Monday in Dallas by paying tribute to his father. Monte Kiffin, who coached in college and the NFL for nearly 60 years, died last week at the age of 84.

“I’ve talked before about being my hero. I had a high school neighborhood friend, middle school friend, and he said hero is not really the right term for him, it’s superhero,” Lane Kiffin said. “It’s what he was to the people that he touched. He used this term, and now I’m using this term in description of him, because I feel like there is very few superheroes and very few great ones that loved everyone and tried to help everyone they came in touch with forever. Whether you were big or small, wherever you were, he tried to help.”

Monte Kiffin was the defensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when they won the Super Bowl in 2002. His famous “Tampa 2” defensive scheme was popularized following that run and became one of the NFL’s most widely-used defenses.

Monte Kiffin spent the last 14 years of his career and life following his son from stop to stop — Tennessee, Southern California, Florida Atlantic and lastly Ole Miss. Monte Kiffin joined the Rebels’ staff as an analyst when Lane was hired in 2020, and worked with the program through last season.

On Monday, Lane Kiffin thanked the Ole Miss community for their support following his father’s death and then quickly segued into other media day topics — just like he thought Monte would want.

“So he never wanted anybody to have a bad day or be sad so this is me trying to do that. I appreciate everything and already been a lot of questions about it. I understand that. I’m appreciative of that,” Lane Kiffin said. “But as he would say, his first rule you put on the chalkboard back in the day to all players and coaches was to show up. First rule of getting better is you got to show up. Show up and do your job. That’s what I’m trying to do here.”

As for football, the Lane Train is steaming ahead into the Southeastern Conference’s new era. Ole Miss finished 11-2 last season, capped by an impressive victory over Penn State in the Peach Bowl, and has almost all of its key players returning.

Among those is quarterback Jaxson Dart, who is entering his third season as the starter. Dart passed for 3,364 yards and 23 touchdowns last season, with only five interceptions. He also rushed for 391 yards and eight TDs.

More than the stats, though, Dart is providing steady veteran leadership at the most important position on the field. Dart also started three games as a freshman for Southern California in 2021 before transferring to Ole Miss.

“The term ‘veteran’ is weird to me because I feel like I’m still pretty young in college football. I just turned 21. But at the same time I understand it,” said Dart, who joined Kiffin and several teammates as Ole Miss’ representatives at media day. “I think the biggest thing I’ve learned through college football is that you truly have to live in the moment. There’s so much movement nowadays, and coaches could be gone any second. With the transfer portal you can see a teammate one day and the next day he’s gone.”

Expectations are high for the Rebels, and managing them has been forefront on the minds of Kiffin and his staff. Kiffin said he’s talked with former Alabama coach Nick Saban about handling the “rat poison” — Saban’s preferred term for media hype about his team — and tried to use some of the advice.

“Yeah, I don’t know that you contain it, you just continue to talk about it,” Kiffin said. “Kind of like in parenting. You just continue to hit on it and hope that it sticks.”

SEC Media Days will continue in Dallas through Thursday, with players and coaches from four of the league’s 16 teams taking their turn in the spotlight each day.

Georgia, Missouri, Tennessee and new league member Oklahoma were featured on Tuesday. Another league newcomer, Texas, will join Mississippi State, Alabama and Florida on Wednesday.
Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky and Texas A&M round out the lineup on Thursday.

The addition of Oklahoma and Texas has changed the complexion of the SEC in a number of ways. It’s caused the league to change its traditional scheduling model, scrap the divisional format that had been in use for 31 years, and alter the way the championship game match-up is set.

Kiffin said it’ll also raise the bar from a competitive standpoint. Texas reached the College Football Playoff last season, while Oklahoma won 11 championships in the Big 12 before moving to the SEC.

“You talk about two of the top programs in the history of college football, and then as I look at things, too, like I said earlier, places that are really hard to play and then you get these night games filtered in and places get really hard to play with fan bases like Oklahoma and Texas,” Kiffin said. “That’s really exciting for the conference, and continues to kind of elevate the super conference.”