OXFORD, Miss. — Since there wasn’t a lot of mystery in Ole Miss’ 27-13 win over South Carolina, it wasn’t particularly surprised he got distracted later. Primarily by Vanderbilt’s win over No. 1 Alabama.
The last time it happened was Sept. 29. 1984. Ole Miss’ head coach had just turned 9 a few months before it happened. He’s never really seen it. Kiffin never really heard the question from a reporter because he was watching the Crimson Tide game on TV.
“How many timeouts does Alabama have?” he asked the media. “They have one left … 1:18 (in the game).”
Considering the surprising outcome, nobody was really complaining. The Crimson Tide had been No. 1 in the polls … for an entire week. That hasn’t happened often in over 100 years of college football.
Even in other pressboxes around the SEC where the late games had started, many weren’t watching those games. An awful lot of folks were watching on some kind of streaming or even televisions tuned into the game because it was so big.
Even @Lane_Kiffin had to lock in on Bama-Vandy 😂
(via @TreyWallace_) pic.twitter.com/kXgbGNVvcS
— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) October 7, 2024
“All right,” he said, resuming the postgame press conference. “Sorry, I didn’t … I mean this is a once in a lifetime thing going on. Better watch, probably never going to see it again.”
That game is a tool coaches can use to not take anything for granted. There will likely be a passing wish by Kiffin that it had happened a couple of weeks ago. It couldn’t have hurt preparations before a 20-17 loss to Kentucky that deflated everybody.
He won’t need it this week. No. 8/9 Ole Miss goes to Baton Rouge, La., for a game with No. 10/13 LSU. It’s also a rivalry game every single year. The Tigers are also pretty good, as usual.
And the Rebels are backed up to a cliff with their season. They almost have to win this one to keep playoff hopes realistic.
A lot of the projections after last week’s topsy-turvy week where unranked Arkansas beat No. 4 Tennessee and No. 21/25 Texas A&M demolished No. 9 Missouri dropped Ole Miss from the 12 teams in the party.
Saturday’s game is probably a play-in game for the Rebels. It is for LSU, too. Considering it’s a night game in Tiger Stadium before a national TV audience, the number of people watching will be huge.
Even the playoff committee members. They are the ones that will really matter the first week of December.
