Bye week doesn’t mean Rebels taking time off before Florida game

OXFORD, Miss. — The attitude now with Ole Miss apparently doesn’t include days off unless you’re injured. Lane Kiffin saw the College Football Playoff rankings Tuesday night just like everybody else.

The Rebels know they can’t afford to faceplant in Gainesville, Fla., next week. Kiffin isn’t taking any chances. That may have happened to a certain degree against Kentucky and Ole Miss is still paying the price for that, although they are No. 11, which is good enough to get you playing for a national championship.

“This is another must-win playoff game,” Kiffin said on the SEC teleconference call Wednesday. “We want to play it really well against these guys. They have really good players and at times they’ve played well. It’s a place that most times people struggle to play in. Just really wanted to utilize this time to get guys focused on this matchup and go all-in to make sure we win.”

Some folks with long memories will remember that game against the Gators isn’t the end of the season. There is still that Egg Bowl dangling at the end and some really unpredictable things have happened in that game, including seeing big dreams fade into memories.

Nobody is wanting to talk about that now. Some fans are assuming an easy path to whatever the postseason brings, others are already asking about who he might be looking at in the transfer portal. That’s not even open yet, so any names are pure speculation.

The portal also affects who might want to go ahead and get a jump off a team, but exactly why anybody would want to leave a team in the playoffs is beyond me. Anybody leaving a playoff game while they are still in the chase for a national championship may not be highly-sought. Or at least they probably shouldn’t be.

“Part of the problem with that really poor system is creating each free agency windows before the season is even over,” Kiffin said. “We’re basically just inviting kids to wander mentally and get tampered with because when the windows are we’re still playing. Can you imagine the NBA or NFL free agency were to start in the playoffs? It would never happen. Just think about that.”

Since there really isn’t a lot said by any of the coaches in their brief appearances on these things, Kiffin wasn’t going into a lot of detail. For now, though, the gaggle of analysts have been studying Florida to get ready for that game.

“We want to make sure we have a really good game plan, to have two weeks to work against these guys,” he said. “We haven’t taken any time off. We’ve been grinding. If the game was this week, we want to make sure we put ourselves in position to play really well in The Swamp.”

After close losses against the Wildcats and LSU (on two plays, really), maybe now the players see why Kiffin and the coaching staff worked to keep them working for the end of the year. With the expanded playoffs, two losses didn’t automatically disqualify anybody. Now they know what he was probably telling them about all the goal still in front of them could still be attained.

“The stuff going around, playoffs and everything, creates a lot of excitement with rankings and all that,” Kiffin said. “They got a taste of playing a really good team. Really, the last three games, we’ve been in the playoffs by losing two games at the last second. We’ve been in the playoffs for a while now. There’s a lot of excitement around that.”

Now the biggest thing is taking care of the last two items of housecleaning left. Ole Miss can’t stumble against Florida or Mississippi State. The players probably realize they haven’t kept doing all that work just to trip and fall with the finish line in sight.

It’s also why they aren’t taking any days off during the bye week.

“We needed to make sure the guys were focused,” he said.

The Rebels will watch the games this weekend, hopefully avoiding the problem teams have had this year being sluggish after bye weeks. Florida will be playing their annual rivalry game against LSU on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. in The Swamp. At 4-5, they can’t avoid any slips just to make a bowl game this year.

Kickoff for Ole Miss’ game with the Gators is set for 11 a.m. on ABC and ESPN+. Fans can also hear the game on the Ole Miss Radio Network across the state of Mississippi.