Loss to Kentucky Forces Ole Miss to Call Players-Only Meeting

Losing to Kentucky puts SEC schools in a mental pretzel. There’s just something about that UK logo that makes them believe they deserve to dominate the Wildcats just because that’s the way things are supposed to happen. When it doesn’t happen, they lose their minds.

Coaches have been fired for losing to Kentucky. Now Ole Miss is hosting players-only meetings.

The Rebels were undefeated and ranked No. 6 when the Wildcats traveled to Oxford and put Jaxson Dart in the torture chamber. The nation’s leading passer was so distraught by the loss that he decided to lead the change and call the players-only meeting.

“We had an offensive meeting Sunday morning following that. Kind of talked things over, how we felt things went negative, what we could have (done) better. Just more (of) how we’re going to do things going forward and what we can do different because we don’t want that result to ever happen again,” wide receiver Cayden Lee said on Tuesday.

“I feel like (Dart is) one of the guys that definitely took it the hardest. He’s the one that had made sure we had that meeting Sunday. He kind of led the meeting and just talked things over. He’s definitely taking it hard. This week I feel like he’s got something in store. We’re going to do really good, I feel like.”

Dart probably took it the hardest because he took four sacks on Saturday. The Kentucky defense pressured him on 42% of his dropbacks and hurried him ten more times. A team that was averaging 55 points per game only scored 17 against the Cats. Ahead of the game, they were 17.5-point favorites.

It’s clear that Ole Miss is shellshocked. All the circumstances listed above make it abundantly clear as to why, but let’s be candid here. It’s early to be calling a players-only meeting. That’s the kind of rhetoric you see when the season is on the verge of spiraling out of control. Maybe that’s on the table following the loss to Kentucky. It wouldn’t be the first time.

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Coaches Who Lost Their Jobs for Losing to Kentucky

Mark Stoops has ended coaching careers for National Championship winners. That feels like an exaggeration, but it’s not at all.

South Carolina was a preseason Top 10 team in 2014. They lost to Kentucky in week six, their third of the season, and things began to spiral for Steve Spurrier. When the Gamecocks lost to Kentucky at Williams-Brice Stadium the following season, Spurrier only lasted a few more weeks before stepping down and retiring from coaching.

LSU’s Ed Orgeron was the leader of one of the greatest college football teams in the history of the sport. A season-and-a-half later, Kentucky was playing Callin’ Baton Rouge while running the Tigers off the field. The sharks circled Orgeron immediately after the loss in Lexington. Following the regular season, he reached a settlement agreement with LSU to step aside.

Nobody hates losing to Kentucky more than the Vols. Tennessee has fired two coaches for losing to Kentucky. Butch Jones only coached the Champions of Life for two more games after he fell to Kentucky. Tennessee was willing to turn themselves in for committing embarrassing recruiting violations to fire Jeremy Pruitt.