Paul Finebaum: 2024 season will be a failure if Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin miss the College Football Playoff

Ole Miss has high expectations coming into this season with the trajectory of their program and what the team of Rebels will look like this year. Those goals have a flip side, though, as Paul Finebaum is clear about what it would mean if they don’t accomplish what some think they should in The ‘Sip.

Finebaum made no buts about it when discussing Ole Miss and the College Football Playoff during ‘McElroy and Cubelic In The Morning’ on Monday. To him, their season would be completely unsuccessful if they were to not make the dozen-team field.

“It would be a failure,” Finebaum said frankly.

That opinion has a lot to do with where they are right now at Ole Miss. The Rebels are coming off a finish of 11-2 overall for one of their best in school history. Many key players from that roster are now back in Oxford for another run this fall. That’s not to mention that, as Finebaum noted, their building is in better shape, which is evidenced by the No. 3 portal class of 24 transfers, many of which are top-tier, that they brought in.

All that has come together to make it playoff or bust for them in 2024 to Finebaum.

“This is what he has been building towards. This is what he has been talking about,” said Finebaum.

“A couple years ago, things did not look great from an NIL standpoint. He was able to reverse that. He aced the portal,” Finebaum continued. “Everyone knows what he got this year. He has got one of the more experienced quarterbacks in the league and around the country.”

The postseason is now the next step for Ole Miss in year five under Lane Kiffin. They have never appeared in the SEC Championship in program history and did not make a playoff appearance. That could now change, and many expect it to change, with a team that can justifiably contend for the conference and make the expanded field, especially after ranking in the Top-12 for the playoff at some point in each of the last three seasons.

For Finebaum, it is what it is when it comes to Ole Miss in ’24. Either they make the playoff and their year will be a success or they miss it and it will be nothing but a disappointment.

“There’s no sugarcoating it. It would be a complete and total failure if Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss don’t make the playoffs,” said Finebaum.