(Photo from Ole Miss Athletics)
- The Rebels needed to beat Georgia to stay in the hunt, but in the looming playoff discussion how they won should carry some weight.
Lane Kiffin didn’t do his off-season shopping at The Gap.
He did it because of the gap.
Georgia throttled the Rebels a year ago, exposing the chasm that still existed between Ole Miss and the SEC elite.
The Rebels only lost twice in 2023, at Alabama and at Georgia. They lost only 24-10 at Alabama but never put real game pressure on the Crimson Tide in the second half.
Georgia was a different story. Ole Miss had two touchdown drives and was tied 14-14 in the early minutes of the second quarter. Then the Bulldogs adjusted. They stepped on the gas and separated en route to a 52-17 win.
Georgia quarterback Carson Beck threw for 306 yards and a couple of touchdowns.
Kiffin bemoaned the talent difference between Georgia’s roster and his and set about changing that through the transfer portal, mostly on defense.
Saturday when the Rebels won 28-10 he got what he paid for.
It was a must-win for the Rebels — as every game as been since they picked up their second loss of the season at LSU on Oct. 12 – to keep their playoff hopes alive.
Indeed, the playoffs are the goal, and the Rebels remain very much in contention with two regular season games left.
But Saturday’s win was important for the gap.
Kiffin closed it.
For all of who have said for so many years that there’s a ceiling to success at Ole Miss, that any coach can only do so much there, what more can one do than knock off the SEC kingpin, Georgia, which has won two national championships in the last three years and is just weeks removed from its dominating performance at Texas?
Georgia, of course, lost earlier in the season at Alabama. In the race for a playoff spot, Tennessee and Texas as the SEC’s only remaining one-loss teams.
The Rebels’ defensive-driven win wasn’t just barely. It was dominant, and it moves the Rebels into any conversation regarding the elite teams in the league.
Defensive dominance
Consider this:
Georgia only scored one touchdown, and that came after a drive that began at the Ole Miss 21 following the interception thrown by Rebels quarterback Jaxson Dart.
Georgia had just 245 total yards, 59 rushing yards and 1.8 yards per rush attempt.
The Rebels lived in the Georgia backfield with five sacks of Beck, four more pressures and nine tackles for loss.
When Beck threw the screens, the Rebels were there.
After the early touchdown Georgia reached the red zone just once – its first drive of the second half – and settled for a 22-yard field goal.
Offensively, Ole Miss only scored two touchdowns, and one was made possible by a seldom-used backup quarterback who came off the bench cold and completed five of six passes for 64 yards to set up a 9-yard touchdown run by Ulysses Bentley.
The Rebels needed to beat Georgia to stay in the hunt, but in the looming playoff discussion how they won should carry some weight.
Alabama didn’t dominate Georgia the same way. Texas certainly didn’t.
Ole Miss has the baggage of an SEC-opening loss to a Kentucky team that has since floundered. Elite teams usually avoid those traps.
But it’s November now, and the Rebels are peaking.
It didn’t start right after the LSU game, but since the third quarter of a 26-14 win over Oklahoma on Oct. 26 this has been a different team.
While the committee considers the Kentucky loss it will also consider how the Rebels have won at South Carolina – which keeps on winning now – and at Arkansas which had beaten Tennessee at home weeks before.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart saw the gap shrinking in game prep for Ole Miss.
“I told my team during the week I thought they were the most talented team we’d played. They really should be undefeated. I know people think that’s not true, but they really controlled the game against LSU then lost it. They outplayed us tonight, outcoached us. They did a great job,” he said.
Odd message in field storm
Ole Miss fans agreed, storming the field before the game was even over and eventually tearing down goalposts.
There was an odd message in the celebration, one that said, “We didn’t really believe you could win.”
That’s when you storm the field, right, when your team defies all odds?
Kiffin has built a formidable program since reaffirming his commitment to Ole Miss after his Auburn flirtation late in 2022.
An 11-win season in 2023 was a big step forward, but the gap remained, narrower but still there.
Ole Miss obliterated the gap against Georgia.
The other half of the elite discussion means the Rebels will close the deal, that they won’t suffer a devastating loss at Florida in two weeks or at home against Mississippi State in the finale.
Take care of those games, and the Rebels will present a strong case to join the playoff field.
