DALLAS ― The Ole Miss football representatives at 2024 SEC Media Days spent their Monday dodging "rat poison," more potent and in higher quantity than quarterback Jaxson Dart has seen in his time with the Rebels.

The "rat poison" phrase was coined by legendary Alabama coach Nick Saban and adopted by Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, who spent three years on Saban's staff. It's a catch-all term to describe outside noise ‒ particularly of the positive variety.

"This is a 'rat poison' situation here to have all this attention on our players," Kiffin said. "And it means nothing because it's all about the work that they put in, the process they do daily. They're working extremely hard this summer, and then we're going to have a lot of work to do in training camp."

The paradigm has shifted on Ole Miss, which returned several key members of last year's 11-2 team and brought in college football's top-ranked transfer class.

Ole Miss won't sneak up on anybody in 2024. The Rebels will begin the season with a seat at the SEC's proverbial adult table and spend 12 regular-season games fighting to keep it.

It's a new challenge, one that comes with brighter lights and heavier expectations ‒ and plenty of reporters asking these Rebels about how great they're going to be.

"I think it's fun," Dart said. "We've set that expectation up for ourselves. That's what happens when you win and you have success. But I don't think from a standpoint of us falling into those (traps) ‒ we compete every single day. And we have a bunch of mature guys who have been in situations like this."

Within the Rebels' program, Kiffin ranks among the figures most prepared to deal with what Ole Miss experienced Monday ‒ and will continue to experience before the season kicks off on Aug. 31.

Under Kiffin, Southern Cal entered the 2012 season as the AP's top-ranked team. The Trojans lost their first conference game at Stanford and finished the year 7-6. Before the halfway point of the following campaign, he was out of a job.

He's hoping more experience and three years of studying under a serial winner like Saban will help him steer the Rebels better this time around.

"That truly was 'rat poison' of where we really shouldn't have been (ranked No. 1) due to scholarship limitations and how low our roster was.

"I think we probably leaned into that too much at the time. Matt Barkley was coming back, and that was made a big deal. ... And we kind of embraced that and leaned into that. It didn't work. So, you look back and say, 'Well, we probably shouldn't have and resisted that more.' "

The Rebels aren't shy about their goals. Dart spoke about national championship aspirations at the Manning Passing Academy last month, and several key program figureheads have touted qualifying for the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff as an achievable objective.

They know they have the pieces to be special. And if they didn't, they got plenty of reminding on Monday. Whether those pieces click will be partially determined by how Ole Miss manages the hype.

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"It's impossible not to see," defensive lineman Jared Ivey said. "It's something that we actively just block out.

"I'm worried about myself and the guy next to me and what we can immediately control. When you're that obsessed with your own process, it's easy to block all the outside stuff out."

David Eckert covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at deckert@gannett.com or reach him on Twitter @davideckert98.

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This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Why Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss football dodged 'rat poison' at SEC Media Days