OXFORD —Jaxson Dart walked off the field as if he were just finishing up a Saturday stroll.
In a sea of madness, the Ole Miss quarterback was the picture of calm.
Dart had just led the 11th-ranked Rebels on a 9-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to give Ole Miss a 38-35 lead with 1:40 left.
As Vaught-Hemingway Stadium erupted, Dart headed to the sideline as if he had done what he expected to do.
If anything, Dart was frustrated. The Rebels, he felt, had scored too quickly. Turns out, it was the only thing Dart got wrong all day.
Zxavian Harris blocked Randy Bond’s 47-yard field goal on the final play of the game, preserving Ole Miss’ 38-35 win.
Dart was 24-for-33 passing, good for 387 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
“I thought he was fabulous today,” Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said, who called the Aggies’ defense the best in the country. “That’s a really hard defense to play that well of a game at quarterback and take care of the ball at the same time too. Awesome game by him.”
Dart said he never even considered the Rebels would fail to score.
“I was confident in going down the field,” Dart said. “We’re a tempo offense so we go fast. I kind of blame it on Coach Kiffin and Coach (Charlie) Weis (Jr.) for calling too good of plays. As a quarterback when you see that much time and you see they have two timeouts, that’s a lot of time to deal with, but at the same time, I had a lot of confidence in our defense. I just knew they were going to be able to get it done.”
Dart talked in the preseason that a year ago some of his decision-making was “gray,” meaning he wasn’t always confident he was making the right choices. This season, Dart has played at an elite level. Saturday may have been his best game to date.
“I thought I played at an elite level in high school my senior year,” Dart said. “But I just felt like, and Coach talked about this before the game, it was kind of nice to have all the guys healthy for the first time. It’s really nice to be able to be able to throw it out to Tre (Harris) or (Jordan Watkins) or (Dayton Wade) or (Caden) Prieskorn and let them make plays and make my job easier.”
It’s about experience and getting game reps in the Southeastern Conference, Dart said. The more he plays, the better he feels.
“I feel like the game has slowed down for me, being able to go through my progressions,” Dart said. “You’re going to make mistakes every game but it’s about minimizing those and playing the next play and not getting too down after a mistake. My mentality from that standpoint has changed a lot and I’ve been able to mature from it.”
Next up is Georgia and a shot at really jumping into the national title conversation.
“Our mentality will stay the same,” Dart said. “It’s focusing on how we prepare, not getting too high or too low and playing each game as just one game.
“We’ve got a lot of ball left and a lot of things to accomplish. We haven’t made it there yet. We have to stay level-headed and keep the same approach.”
