Football
Ole Miss Must Get Win to Keep Playoff Hopes Alive
Rebels still have all goals in front of them, but need win against Gamecocks today to avoid sailing into ditch
There is no more margin for error with Ole Miss, but Lane Kiffin says he’s not talking about that with his team. His main concern is Saturday’s game against the South Carolina Gamecocks.
“That’s all outcome based and not the process of how we are practicing and playing on Saturday,” Kiffin said on Monday, proving he was paying more attention during his Alabama days than maybe even Nick Saban thinks. That sounds exactly like what the former Crimson Tide coach would say.
Now Kiffin just needs the Rebels to respond the way Alabama did for 17 years. Now there are some Ole Miss fans thinking the season and all hopes of the playoffs are gone. Everybody needs to just relax. That’s what he told his players.
“You get those questions, understand that everything you want to do is still there,” Kiffin said he told the team. “There will be multiple people with one or two losses. You see people that you think are going to win these games and they don’t because this conference is so good.”
The Rebels are in Columbia, S.C. to face the South Carolina Gamecocks inside Williams-Brice Stadium. Kickoff is set for 2:30 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN or listen on the Ole Miss Radio Network.
Injuries are another possible issue. Kiffin put so many players on the availability report this week, it’s hard to know which ones will be playing and the ones that aren’t. The Gamecocks are coming off a bye week, almost a month removed from their first SEC win of 2024 against Kentucky. Ole Miss can’t be looking ahead to next week’s game with Ole Miss.
They are flat out of any margin for error after that loss to the Wildcats last week.
But every week brings entire new lines of conversation into the mix. In the early games Se aturday afternoon, Texas A&M ran up a 34-0 lead on No. 9 Missouri before a wild crowd at Kyle Field in College Station. That’s shocker No. 1 on the day and we’ll see how it plays out.
No Rebels fans were expecting to be in this spot. Everybody had the gae against the Wildcats marked as a W all summer and now they’ve got to re-adjust expectations.
Somehow, though, you look at how this season is starting to play out maybe even two losses could automatically eliminate a team from the playoffs. Not this year.
That loss has to be what is called in some circles as a quality loss. That means Ole Miss has to beat everybody not from Athens, Ga., and hope other teams are struggling the same way.. It matters now with the expanding playoff format.
