Lane Kiffin calls out 'rat poison' distractions for Ole Miss heading into an SEC season with high expectations

Lane Kiffin is always good for a few zingers when he's on the podium. Sometimes because he's so coy with it all you don't realize how sassy he's truly being until you read the quotes back after the fact. And that's exactly how his time went during the opening sessions of SEC Media Days on Monday (at least for part of it).

Lane was asked about the high expectations set for this upcoming SEC season at Ole Miss, implications of playoff bids, and hype surrounding their transfer acquisitions and quarterback Jaxson Dart. Kiffin had a familiar and perfect term for all of that kind of thing: rat poison.

"As Coach [Nick] Saban used to say, that's truly rat poison. Especially in the preseason. There have been plenty of teams not ranked highly end up high and plenty of highly ranked teams that end up [ranked] low."

Related: Three potential Ole Miss Rebels breakout players for the 2024 college football season

The Ole Miss Rebels have consistently ranked inside the Top 10 of betting odds and preseason lists throughout this entire offseason, but apparently Lane Kiffin isn't too interested in all of that. He understands how difficult it can be for a team to gel together, work as hard as they possibly can, and actually meet high expectations. In fact he went so far as to say that he doesn't really "deal" with "expecting" too much.

"I don't deal in a whole lot in 'expecting' things exactly to happen, because they don't really go that way...It's more about the process of daily work with our players, and I do think we have a really good collection of players that decided to return, including all three that are here today."

This is a much different Lane Kiffin in terms of how he deals with hype and expectations these days. He's built up programs with massive preseason expectations before at Tennessee and USC. This time it's clear he just wants his guys to put their heads down and work. In fact, when asked about how to deal with all the noise and social media buzz for the team he said "it's impossible" to really block it all about, but in the end "it doesn't matter at all" what people say online.

Related: Four-star Ole Miss target sets date for his commitment announcement

All the buzz may mean nothing to Lane Kiffin, but it's hard to deny how much excitement there really should be surrounding the Ole Miss program. According to all the major recruiting services the Rebels brought in the number one (or close to it) overall transfer portal class. Kiffin and his staff added former five star defensive lineman Walter Nolen (from Texas A&M), elite edge rusher Princely Umanmielen (from Florida), star cornerback Trey Amos (from Alabama), and much more!

But even when it came to speaking to those kind of special talents Kiffin tried to downplay things:

"We were able to add some really intriguing portal pieces, but again there's a lot of work to do...All those [high] expectations out there? Those mean nothing."

Lane Kiffin is clearly all business this season, ready to make a push with Ole Miss further than they ever have. But it's good to see he's still not above a solid nod to Nick Saban, calling out "rat poison" as he sees fit.

Be looking for more Ole Miss Rebels coverage here at A to Z Sports all year long! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) on X (Twitter) for all the latest football news!

And if you want to watch some Jaxson Dart highlights to see how special his 2024 season could be for Ole Miss you can check out the video below!