Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss let the Rebels' season sink in The Swamp

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin wore the blank stare of a man whose world had flipped upside down as he walked out of his postgame press conference Saturday. The words he’d just said summed up the situation perfectly, but understanding the situation and dealing with it are two completely different things. What transpired in The Swamp could take months to process.

“This is the new-age setup. There’s the playoff line. You kind of know where that is a little bit. Third loss doesn’t get you there,” Kiffin said. “Just a different world — almost NFL-ish when you get knocked out of the playoffs. You’ve still got a game to play. Obviously this is an important game, but we’ll get to that tomorrow.”

Kiffin was talking about the Egg Bowl, which matters and doesn’t matter. It matters because it’s a bragging-rights game that Ole Miss always wants to win. It doesn’t matter because the thing the Rebels built their roster around — the College Football Playoff — is now out of their reach barring some sort of incredible calamity across the sport. Saturday’s 24-17 loss at Florida effectively ended the quest for the playoff, and it rendered this season a failure.

Think that characterization is too harsh? It isn’t. Ole Miss had multiple accomplished veterans put off the NFL for a year just to make a playoff appearance. The Grove Collective pushed all-in, supplementing the roster by paying top dollar to some of the best players available in the transfer portal. The goal was playoff or bust. 

An inexplicable loss at home to Kentucky was strike one, but the 12-team format allows some margin for error. An overtime loss at LSU was chalked up to nighttime at Tiger Stadium. But that took away the wiggle room, and Ole Miss players understood that fully. They said as much publicly and said after crushing Georgia two weeks ago that they played so well in part because they knew their backs were against the wall.

They knew it Saturday, too. But a dropped touchdown, a moonlighting 325-pound defensive tackle — who usually converts — stuffed on two fourth-down run plays, and an inexplicable throw into triple coverage with three timeouts still in pocket spelled doom against a Florida team that rallied around coach Billy Napier when it appeared Napier might be fired and then ascended when freshman D.J. Lagway became the starting quarterback.

Tennessee fans did the Gator chomp when they announced the score at Neyland Stadium because now Volunteers fans can stop arguing with Indiana fans about which deserves an at-large bid. There’s probably room for both now with no Rebels in the bracket.

Following a 28-10 Ole Miss win against Georgia, the idea of the Rebels going to a run-of-the-mill bowl game seemed impossible. This looked like a roster capable not just of making the CFP but of winning the tournament. And the schedule set up perfectly. A bye week, a game against .500 Florida and a regular-season finale against archrival Mississippi State, which has yet to win a conference game this season. 

The path rolled out for the Rebels, but they declined to walk it. And that, given everything Ole Miss had working in its favor, is a failure.

Does that mean Ole Miss erred in going all-in on the portal this past offseason? Absolutely not. The roster was good enough. As Kiffin’s former boss Nick Saban would say, the process was sound. The Rebels did not get the result they wanted.

In the offseason, they probably should do the same thing again on the player acquisition front. Kiffin and his staff need to get to work to try to understand why this team was so inconsistent from week-to-week and try to create a more consistent product next year. 

If there were any fears about Kiffin leaving for Florida, they were put to rest Saturday. He was atop the wish list of Florida fans and big money donors alike when it appeared Napier was toast. But Napier, who got a vote of confidence two weeks ago from Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin, essentially made himself bulletproof by beating Kiffin on Saturday. He’s got Lagway, and if the Gators are smart, they’ll try to supplement their roster this offseason exactly the way Ole Miss did last offseason. 

Unfortunately for the Rebels, not everyone will be back. The core of this team is headed to the NFL. That includes Jaxson Dart, who threw for 323 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 71 yards Saturday. Dart also threw two crippling interceptions in the final moments. The first was a throw into a group of Gators in the end zone on a first-and-10 play from the Florida 39-yard line with 1:32 remaining with with Ole Miss still holding three timeouts. “Just completely unusual that he threw that ball in that situation,” Kiffin said. “He’s usually really good at that. I told him before that we had plenty of time to take shots and he went very aggressive on that.”

Dart was inconsolable afterward. “I think the only thing I can say right now — sorry to my teammates. Sorry to my coaches, sorry to the fans — can’t lose these games,” Dart said. “Yeah, this one is going to hurt for a really long time. I think that’s all I can really say to everyone is that I’m sorry.”

Another quarterback issued a similar apology about 150 feet from where Dart stood 16 years ago after an Ole Miss-Florida game. But Tim Tebow’s apology in 2008 came after loss No. 1 in September. That Gators team didn’t lose again and won the national title.

After loss No. 3, there are no more mulligans. Ole Miss still has one more game to play, but the dream died in Gainesville.