Ole Miss Is the Most Dangerous Team Remaining In CFP
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After former Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin’s pre-playoff departure, many thought the Rebels couldn’t sustain their level of success from the regular season. But they’ve done just that and then some. Now, they’re the most dangerous team left…and no one realizes it.
Once again, teams without a first-round bye have dominated teams with a bye in the College Football Playoff (CFP) quarterfinals. In the two years of the 12-team playoff format, teams with a first-round bye are now a combined 1-7 in the quarterfinals.
This year, it leaves No. 1 Indiana, No. 5 Oregon, No. 6 Ole Miss and No. 10 Miami.
Once Is Luck, Twice Is Skill
The Ole Miss Rebels now have not one, but two wins without Lane Kiffin.
Kiffin was the primary play-caller during his tenure with the Rebels and took the Rebel offense to new heights, leading them to an 11-1 regular season. It seems like they haven’t missed a beat without him, though, notching 41 points against No. 20 Tulane and 39 against No. 3 Georgia in back-to-back weeks.
Last week, I wrote that Ole Miss’s dominating win over Tulane could’ve been a fluke. After all, Tulane is a Group of Five team, and Group of Five teams are winless (0-4) in CFP history. But the Rebels’ nail-biting victory over Georgia proved that their post-Kiffin era success isn’t luck, it’s skill.
Ole Miss’s QB Magic
Two words: Trinidad Chambliss.
Last year, Chambliss, now the starting quarterback for the Rebels, led Ferris State to a Division II national football championship. He transferred to Ole Miss and did not even start the first two weeks. After an injury to the previous starting QB, Austin Simmons, Chambliss took over and never looked back.
Chambliss has boasted a completion rate of at least 65% in each of his previous five games, and he played phenomenally in both playoff games so far.
Against Tulane, he had a 79.3% completion rate, 282 passing yards, one passing touchdown, 36 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns. He showcased his elite ability to evade pass rushers multiple times, including a third-down conversion with about 13 minutes left in the second quarter.
As if that wasn’t enough, he made multiple absolutely miraculous plays against Georgia, including back-to-back game-changing plays near the start of the fourth quarter. He threw for a whopping 362 yards!
Chambliss’s ability to make quick decisions, keep his eyes down the field, evade pressure, throw darts and scramble makes him a force to be reckoned with.
A Well-Rounded Team
Ole Miss is elite beyond just Trinidad Chambliss. Against Georgia, a notoriously stubborn run defense that’s one of the best in the country, Kewan Lacy ran for 98 yards and two touchdowns. He was able to gain yardage on multiple crucial plays to keep drives moving and alive.
Defensively, Ole Miss was able to limit Georgia running back Nate Frazier and one of the best fourth-quarter offenses in the country.
Frazier is one of the toughest players to bring down in the sport. While Frazier cut through the Ole Miss defense for easy first downs on multiple occasions, the Rebels improved at bringing him down as the game went on.
Entering the game, the Bulldogs had a 75-game win streak when they led entering the fourth quarter. Gunner Stockton is one of the best fourth-quarter QBs in the sport. This season, in the fourth quarter, he has a 83.6% completion rate, seven touchdowns and no interceptions. But it didn’t matter to the Rebels, who outscored the Bulldogs 20-10 in the fourth.
All Three Phases Covered
Even the Ole Miss kicker is elite.
Lucas Carneiro is one of, if not the best, kickers in college football. He’s never missed an extra point kick in his three years playing. He converted 90% of his field goals this year. He’s also 90% on field goals from beyond 50 yards in his career. That includes his two field goals from beyond 50 in a 3-for-3 playoff game Thursday against Georgia.
Playing against Georgia means playing against the officials; Ole Miss somehow managed to beat them, too.
Despite suffering from a blatant missed face-mask penalty late in the game that cost them a drive, the Rebels held on. Even a questionable defensive pass interference and a holding call on Ole Miss in the final two minutes, both of which combined to give Georgia large chunks of yardage, weren’t enough to beat the Rebels.
Especially since the referees in this year’s playoffs and in Thursday’s game have been largely focused on “letting the players play” instead of throwing flags, a trifecta of horribly officiated plays late in the game definitely raises some eyebrows.
Furthermore, it’s possible that officials could have been swayed by those who would have liked to see Georgia have to take on former QB Carson Beck, who is now with Miami, in the next round.
Is Anyone Else More Battle-Tested?
Yes, the Big Ten has two teams in the final four. And yes, they’ve won back-to-back national titles. But the Big Ten is top-heavy. While Ohio State, Oregon and Indiana can compete with the best teams in the sport, teams like Wisconsin, an opponent of both Indiana and Oregon this season, cannot. As a result, Oregon and Indiana haven’t had to put up with as grueling a schedule as Ole Miss.
The SEC, on the other hand, is still the deepest football conference in America. The worst teams in the SEC are still better than the worst teams in any other conference on any given day. This makes the SEC schedule that Ole Miss has to endure annually harder than that of any of their remaining counterparts. Arkansas, the SEC’s worst team this year, lost to Ole Miss by only six and Texas A&M and Tennessee by three points each.
And the ACC? Well, their own conference champion didn’t make the playoffs. Miami doesn’t even get a seat at the table in this conversation.
In addition, Ole Miss is now 4-1 against teams that finished the season in the top 20. Indiana is 3-0, Miami is 3-0 and Oregon is 2-1. The Rebels have proven themselves as ready for top teams, and they have more difficult experiences to learn from.
Motivation And Underestimation
Indiana can certainly argue its case to be the most dominant team remaining in the CFP. They beat the reigning national champions and championship favorites, the Ohio State Buckeyes, for the Big Ten title. The Hoosiers beat Oregon, who they will face again on January 9, already this season. They made Alabama, of all teams, look like a Division III football team. But everyone already knows how good Indiana is.
For Oregon, everyone has been thoroughly impressed by both coach Dan Lanning and quarterback Dante Moore. Their passing game and execution are excellent. But their ground game is lethal as well. They averaged 206.1 rushing yards per game this season, 15th in the FBS. They were even the betting favorites heading into their quarterfinal game against the Big 12 champs, Texas Tech.
Ole Miss, on the other hand, was doubted against Georgia. They weren’t in the SEC conference championship game. They lost their coach. People questioned how far they should drop in the rankings following Lane Kiffin’s departure. Yet they’ve somehow looked even better.
Even now, FanDuel lists Ole Miss as the biggest longshot to win the national title at +570 odds.
Multiple players have voiced their displeasure about the way Kiffin left, including Zxavian Harris. He felt like it was a “slap in the face.”
They’ve also publicly refuted Kiffin’s claims that the majority wanted him to coach them through the playoffs. The Rebels are fired up with all the momentum in the world, and underestimating them at this point would be a surefire way to motivate them further.
Just Don’t Beat Yourself
When Ole Miss had the ball at Georgia’s 30-yard line with 26 seconds to go, they just had to chew clock and kick a field goal. Either Georgia would’ve begun calling timeouts to get the ball back, or Ole Miss could’ve run the clock down to about four seconds before spiking the ball to set up the field goal.
Instead, the Rebels left the Bulldogs with all three timeouts and a second after the field goal. While it didn’t cost them the win, why even leave your opponent a chance? If the Rebels don’t learn from their clock mismanagement down the wire, they may not be so lucky next time.
The only team stopping the Rebels from being the most dangerous team left is the Rebels themselves.
The post Ole Miss Is the Most Dangerous Team Remaining In CFP appeared first on The Lead.
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