Boom! Former Sooner Key Lawrence announces commitment to Ole Miss
Lawrence will arrive in Oxford with one year of eligibility remaining
One of the nation’s top transfer portal safeties announced his commitment to Ole Miss on Thursday. Key Lawrence, a portal entry from the Oklahoma Sooners, announced he would finish his collegiate career as an Ole Miss Rebel.
Lawrence is not yet rated as a transfer portal prospect by 247Sports. He was a four-star prospect rated as the nation’s No. 6 safety and the No. 1 player from Tennessee by the industry-generated 247Sports Composite index coming out of Ensworth Academy in Nashville in the prep class of 2020.
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Lane Kiffin currently has the upper hand in-state, with programs going ‘two different directions’
Ole Miss and Lane Kiffin can sell a championship run, with a 12-team race next season, which has helped bolster their roster for the 2024 season.
In recent years there has been a narrative circulating around that fourth-year Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin doesn’t recruit the state of Mississippi well enough. However, on early National Signing Day, he helped put those discussions to rest.
Ole Miss secured the signatures of five of 247Sports’ top-eight 2024 in-state recruits. Four of them will soon be anchoring the defensive line for Randall Joyner.
How was Kiffin so successful this year than in years past in that department? Well, it certainly helps when his program can legitimately sell a national championship chase to top recruits. But it also helps prying away those same players from their arch rival when they might not be able to sell the same thing.
“I think this was a really good year in-state of players, especially defensive lineman…I feel like it was the best in-state class of players or high level players since we’ve been here. It certainly helps (that) the different direction of the two programs in-state,” Kiffin added. “That always helps when one program is going one way and the other one’s going the other.”
Not only has selling a potential championship run helped Kiffin and the Rebels land what looks to be the top defensive line class, but it’s also helped them land 247Sports’ top-three transfer class and a plethora of NFL talent returning for the 2024 season.
The Coordinator of Recruiting Strategy for Ole Miss is Kelvin Bolden. Lately he’s been on social media posting pictures and quotes of former NBA icon Michael Jordan. How does that relate to Ole Miss football? Well the posts in particular, and based on transfer results, seems that he’ll post a picture of Jordan wearing No. 23 when a new player is coming aboard and Jordan wearing No. 45 when a player is returning.
The championship pedigree of Jordan has also seemed to spill into some sort of theme in the building that the team is trying to rally around for ‘one last season’, for some.
“Yeah, some of them kind of joke like (relating next season) to The Last Dance (documentary),” Kiffin said about going all in for the 2024 season. “These guys a lot of times wouldn’t have come back. I think that when they get their grades — kind of still go out middle type of round grades — they still (leave) normally. They stayed, so I think that’s a product of a number of things.”
Seniors that have publicly announced that they will be exercising their COVID year for one more collegiate season include Tre Harris, Caden Prieskorn, JJ Pegues, Jordan Watkins, Caleb Warren and Jared Ivey. Everyone’s still waiting on Jaxson Dart to announce his future plans, but with the culture Kiffin has helped built up in Oxford, and with the returners coming back in 2024, one should like Ole Miss’ chances in getting their starting signal caller back for 2024. 
“I think that’s a really cool locker room and culture that they have. As players they wanted to come back, they recruited each other to come back and almost all of them did,” Kiffin added. “That’s very unique nowadays and also we have very few kids leaving (for) the portal. Almost all of our kids, especially that play, don’t leave. That’s been really neat and a huge credit to our assistant coaches for culture and to the players.”
Ole Miss remains less than a week from officially closing their 2023 season. Kickoff for the 2023 Peach Bowl between No. 11 Ole Miss (10-2) and No. 10 Penn State (10-2) is set for 11 a.m. CT and can be seen on ESPN on Saturday Dec. 30. Ole Miss stands as 3.5-point underdogs, at the time of this writing. Inside the Rebels will be on site for Ole Miss’ season finale and will provide more updates, quotes and stories leading up to game day.
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