Everything gold for Ole Miss until suddenly it wasn’t in Florida

OXFORD, Miss. — It’s probably time to put all the Lane Kiffin rumors to rest. I find it highly improbable the folks at Florida are willing to pony up the huge amount of money that would take.

Especially after what happened Saturday. Talk about a stark contrast. In over 50 years of covering college sports, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the hoped-for replacement for a coach get kicked sideways by the guy a lot of folks wanted to replace.

Talk about putting that whole idea into the trash can. When the Gators just out-performed Ole Miss on Saturday, 24-17, naturally everybody around here is feeling like all their plans just got dumped and now they have nowhere to go. It was golden until, shockingly for some, it wasn’t down in Gainesville.

Don’t worry. The Rebels will be playing in a bowl game, but for a team that was built specifically for this year and the playoffs, it’s a downer. When Ole Miss lost to Kentucky back in September, maybe we saw that as good as this team was, if they didn’t play well (for whatever reason), they couldn’t win.

“A lot was at stake and we didn’t come through,” Kiffin said later, not ducking what everybody plainly saw. “It’s football. It happens. The year before, the close ones were opposite and they went our way. Sometimes it bounces that way and sometimes we had opportunities to make plays in situations.”

All of that is true and he was correct pointing out these things happen in football at times. It’s happened to everybody at one point or the other. Every single coach in the Hall of Fame had a handful of games that fall into that category. It’s really why fans should never fail to bask in the glow of winning one of those big games. It can go the other direction quickly.

Now folks are pointing out this was a team put together for one specific season. Others will be saying Kiffin can’t win a championship here and will look for greener pastures at a place where he can. Ignore all of that and just look at what’s going on in college football these days.

SMU has gone from the depths of hell in the college football world, said we’ll pay our own way to be in the ACC. They are now are sitting square in the middle of playing for a Power 4 conference championship in the first year since jumping from a low Group of 5 conference. Indiana is actually making folks aware they have a football program.

Ole Miss simply ran into a team that Billy Napier ignored all the talk about his job and developed them into a really good team. We tend to put the entire future fate of a program on what happened last week. If the best game a team plays is in September, your holiday destination probably isn’t going to be in the playoffs.

Don’t write off next year just yet. This may have been a one-hit wonder, but there’s no evidence of that yet. Besides, who is to say Kiffin won’t turn around and round up a better team next year?

The bottom line is it’s almost guaranteed the Rebels won’t be in the playoffs this year. Where they will land is a wide open guess right now, but it could be from somewhere in California to Las Vegas.

Ole Miss need to stop the “what-if” and start wondering “what can be” going ahead. The odds are all this will pass before Friday.

That’s when Mississippi State comes to town. Is there a better way for the Rebels to take out their frustrations?