It didn’t take long for Lane Kiffin to realize he had something special in John Rhys Plumlee.

While the first-year Ole Miss coach is quick to point out the quarterback competition is ongoing in Oxford during his first training camp with the Rebels, Kiffin was asked to describe Plumlee in one word during a recent appearance on SEC Now.

“Fast,” Kiffin answered.

But it’s not just speed that makes Plumlee a unique talent, according to his coach.

“He’s an awesome kid, baseball player, piano player, I mean 4.0 student. Unbelievable kid, first off, so it’s been neat to be around him,” Kiffin continued. “We’re in the middle of a quarterback competition with him and Matt Corral and both guys have done well through two days and we got a lot of work to do, both guys played well at times last year.”

Early this week, Kiffin found out like the rest of us that Ole Miss would open the season in Oxford against Florida when the SEC revealed the updated SEC schedule after shifting to a 10-game, conference-only schedule.

Kiffin was asked to share his thoughts on the matchup.

“We’re excited,” Kiffin added. “Wanted to be at home, playing a top 10 team in Florida, great tradition and always great players and always a challenge on both sides of all, especially you know defensively, they always got great defensive players. I think it’s exciting, you know it’s like having a big opener, you know that your players can look forward to has always been a good thing.”

If you missed it this offseason, Paul Finebaum predicted that Kiffin would be the first former Nick Saban assistant to knock off the Alabama coach — Saban is currently 19-0 against his former assistants.

While that may be Finebaum’s prediction, Kiffin wasn’t eager to add any fire to the upcoming matchup between Alabama and Ole Miss during Week 3 of the season.

“I think that’s Paul just trying to get his ratings up by saying something people really either like or dislike depending on what teams are fans of. So, that’s the last thing on our mind right now, we got so much work to do just. We’ve had two practices with our team ever, you know, we never had spring ball, so we have so much work to do.”

You can check out the full clip below courtesy of the SEC Network: