Lane Kiffin issued a 'challenge' to his team against The Citadel. Ole Miss accepted it.
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OXFORD – Prior to Saturday’s matchup against The Citadel, Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin made sure his team understood their standard of excellence didn’t change just because of the level of competition.
The Rebels understood the assignment.
In a 49-0 victory over The Citadel, No. 6 Ole Miss (9-1, 5-1 SEC) outgained the Bulldogs 603-106 and racked up a whopping 30 more first downs. Senior quarterback Trinidad Chambliss bounced back from his worst performance of the season against South Carolina with a nearly perfect stat line against the FCS foe, completing 29 of 33 passes for 333 yards and three touchdowns. Sophomore running back Kewan Lacy had his second three-touchdown performance of the season and tied the single-season school record with 16 rushing touchdowns.
The result of Saturday’s game was likely never to be in doubt; the Rebels were favored by more than 50 points at kickoff for a reason. But mismatches don’t always go according to plan or result in the expected blowouts – the first meeting between the teams in 2005 saw Ole Miss lead just 10-7 early in the third quarter. The Rebels played their A-game on a day where they could have settled for far less.
“That was the challenge … these games don’t always go like this like people think they’re going to go, especially later in the year. A lot of times they do early, but not early and guys come out flat,” Kiffin said. “ … These things happen where, these guys hang around and nobody feels good about it afterwards. So, just talked a lot about that all week.”
Defensively, the Rebels held The Citadel to just 23 passing yards and five total first downs. The Bulldogs averaged 2.1 yards per play compared to 7.4 for Ole Miss.
Getting a nearly flawless performance on both sides of the ball at this point in the season is no small matter. With regular-season games against Florida and Mississippi State standing in the way of the Rebels’ first-ever College Football Playoff appearance, getting the team firing on all cylinders is of the utmost importance.
“That’s very important, especially where we are in the season, later on in the season,” Chambliss said. “That’s when you want to be sharp and be in the same groove and just execute at a high level. Because after the regular season, then it’s postseason, and those are the games that really matter and those are the games that you really want to win.”
Ole Miss hosts Florida (3-6, 2-4) on Saturday at 6 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.
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