OXFORD — While it won’t ultimately change the result of a game everyone in the Ole Miss locker room believes it firmly had in its grasp, Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin offered his team some solace Monday morning: A couple of heartbreaking losses doesn’t mean a team is suddenly bad. And there is plenty of season left to prove that.
No. 18 Ole Miss (5-2, 1-2 SEC) traveled to Baton Rouge last weekend and was on the verge of its first win at LSU’s Tiger Stadium since 2008. The Rebels led the game’s final three quarters until the 27-second mark of the fourth, when Tigers quarterback Garrett Nussmeier threw the game-tying touchdown pass on fourth down, the second fourth-down conversion of the drive. Ole Miss kicked a field goal on its first possession of overtime, but Nussmeier found Kyren Lacy in the end zone on the Tigers’ first offensive play of the extra period, leading the home crowd to rush the field and the visiting team trying to figure out what exactly happened. The Rebels didn’t trail in Saturday’s game until the final play.
Ole Miss, who has the first of its two byes this week, has two losses this season by a combined six points.
“We were ahead the whole game and one play away from closing it out,” Kiffin said. “A lot left to play for. I told them, you’re a really good team. We’re just not finishing like a great team would, or we’re undefeated right now.”
Ole Miss entered the season ranked No. 6 in the AP Poll and was a popular pick to make the newly-expanded 12-team College Football Playoff. While those aspirations have taken a hit in the last three weeks, they remain on the table should the Rebels take care of business the rest of the way. The Rebels host Oklahoma on Oct. 26 before facing Arkansas on the road and hosting Georgia prior to the second bye week.
According to ESPN’s Allstate Playoff Predictor, Ole Miss currently has a 24% chance to make the CFP. Per ESPN’s Matchup Predictor, the Rebels have the edge in each of their final five games, including a 54.9% chance to beat No. 5 Georgia in Oxford.
“You can’t just dwell in it,” senior defensive tackle JJ Pegues said. “Because at the end of the day, we do have more games to play, and we still want to leave a mark here that no one else has left. So, I just feel like we just keep going, keep putting our head down and just work harder.”
Following Saturday’s loss, Kiffin and players — particularly senior quarterback Jaxson Dart — were seemingly at a loss for words. Dart was in shock as he met with reporters, telling media he “(didn’t) understand how we lost.” Dart was also asked what he had to do to help himself and his team rebound. His response was simple but direct.
“We have to win out,” Dart said postgame. “There’s no other option.”
Kiffin noted it’s easier said than done to want to run the table and that, on the surface level, saying it doesn’t mean much. Anyone can say they want to win out, Kiffin said, but the process of winning each week is what ultimately will get the Rebels where they want to go. Kiffin did say, however, that not all teams have the ability to win the rest of their games. He believes Ole Miss has “a chance to do that.”
Kiffin was asked where the team was at mentally following the loss and heading into the bye week. His message to the Rebels? There’s no point in wallowing in their own self-pity. That isn’t going to help win games.
“That’s my job as the head coach, of where they’re at mentally,” Kiffin said. “I think they were really bad when they came in, and I had to say, ‘Hey, this is reality. We have to have acceptance of, this happened. We have fault in the reality, and the fault in the loss and fault in being 5-2 and not being undefeated. But we also can’t just sit around and continue to mourn and sit in this versus, OK, let’s work, let’s watch the film. Here’s all these plays, situations that would have made a difference.’
“… Now we have to go forward. And now we have a chance to get better in the bye week, get healthy, improve on some things and go win the rest of them.”
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