OXFORD — There’s not a ton one can take from a spring game.

So I won’t.

However, a couple of plays stuck out early in Saturday’s Grove Bowl.

First, after Matt Corral and the Blue team drove to the Red 5-yard line on the game’s opening drive, the Red defense did what Ole Miss struggled to do most of last season — make a stop.

On the Red’s second play from scrimmage, the Blue’s Deantre Prince picked off Kinkead Dent, setting up a touchdown. Turnovers leading to scores weren’t exactly a strong suit for Ole Miss in 2020, either.

But like I said, read a lot into a spring game at your own peril. Ole Miss had seemingly dozens of players out of Saturday’s exhibition, one won by the Blue, 28-6.

Championships aren’t won in April, but they can be lost in the spring. Ole Miss made sure that didn’t happen. If a player wasn’t healthy, he didn’t play Saturday. Mother Nature likely chased off some fans who intended to make the day a doubleheader. Shortly after Ole Miss finished a comeback to beat LSU, 10-9, Saturday afternoon, the skies above Vaught-Hemingway Stadium opened.

“It was a cool day,” Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin. “It was a really cool day, Baseball had the really big comeback win right before we started, which was neat that it happened to be on as we were finishing up warm-ups.”

Saturday’s format featured the starting offense and the backup defense on the Blue team with the backup offense and starting defense playing for the Red. Other players were drafted earlier in the week to fill in the rosters.

The result was what one would expect from such a setup, especially on a day when a steady rain fell — sloppy at times on offense and a field day of sorts for the defense.

Corral was 12 of 19 for 208 yards and two touchdowns. Jakwaize Walker was the game’s leading rusher with 11 carries for 75 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Braylon Sanders picked up where he left off before a season-ending injury at LSU last December, catching four passes for 135 yards and a touchdown.

If you’re picking apart the box score, however, you’re searching for clues that likely aren’t there at this point. Ole Miss opens its season on Labor Day, Sept. 6, versus Louisville in Atlanta. The product on the field that day will look a lot different than the one that played Saturday. Jerrion Ealy, Henry Parrish Jr. and Snoop Conner will all, presumably, be available at running back. Ben Brown will be at center, anchoring the Rebels’ offensive line. Corral flashed his penchant for the deep ball on a few occasions Saturday, and when he has a full complement of weapons at his disposal, Ole Miss’ offense figures to be explosive.

The Rebels’ defense was the story of the spring. Ole Miss has added bodies up front and in the secondary. The Rebels are bigger up front and deeper, longer and more athletic on the back end. Ole Miss might not be dominant on defense in the fall, but it stands to reason it won’t be awful, either. An average defense might be enough to make Ole Miss more than a little bit interesting. An above average defense might be enough to make the Rebels sneaky contenders — certainly for the spot behind defending national champion Alabama in the Southeastern Conference’s Western Division.

“I look at the spring as a whole and I think we’re much improved on defense,” Kiffin said.

Of course, Saturday wasn’t about football, as odd as that sounds. Ole Miss spent the week teasing Saturday’s game as a “party,” and the day included photo shoots for the players and coaches, a pregame baseball game played by the coaching and support staffs and touchdown celebrations that would draw penalty flags in real games, including one after the game’s final play that saw Jonathan Hess punt a ball into the stands after catching a touchdown pass from Luke Altmyer and then get showered with whatever it was that was coming out of Corral’s fire extinguisher.

“Our guys had fun,” Kiffin said. “They had a good time before and we’re trying to make it fun. I thought the stuff before was pretty cool and the coaches got into it, dressing up and all that. If I watching, I’d say that’s a fun place to go. So I’d go there.”

Lane Kiffin is a social media genius. He and Ole Miss’ social media team have marketed the Rebels as a fun program to be a part of. On the heels of a surprising 2020 that featured a 5-5 record, close calls against Alabama, Auburn and LSU and an Outback Bowl win over Indiana, it’s a marketing campaign the Rebels hope pulls in prospects starting this summer when the pandemic-forced recruiting dead period finally ends.

“The most important thing is the product you put on the field at the end,” Kiffin said. “The other stuff is good, so that’s why we try to be creative with it. But if we can go out and play really well, that’ll help more than anything.”