By the end of a season, almost all teams have an identity.
Ole Miss is no exception. After 12 games, from an offensive onslaught in Atlanta to beat Louisville to Thursday night’s Egg Bowl clash in the rain in Starkville, this Ole Miss team just wins.
It’s probably not as pretty as Lane Kiffin would love to see it, and it certainly doesn’t look in late late November like it did it early September, but Ole Miss just wins.
That certainly rang true in Starkville Thursday. No. 8 Ole Miss’ offense just pounded and prodded all night while the Rebels’ defense bent but didn’t break en route to a 31-21 win.
Ole Miss wrapped up the regular season with a 10-2 mark, including a 6-2 record in the Southeastern Conference. The 10 wins mark the first 10-win regular season in program history. Ole Miss will now wait a week to find out its postseason destination, but the Rebels are almost certainly bound for the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans or the Peach Bowl in Atlanta.
For his efforts, Kiffin picked up a bonus of $150,000 for adding another SEC win. By clinching a New Year’s Six bowl bid, Kiffin is guaranteed another $250,000. It could be just the beginning of a financial windfall for the second-year Ole Miss coach. Sources indicate Kiffin and Ole Miss officials have, at a minimum, discussed an extension that would pay Kiffin some $8 million per season.
Though Kiffin’s name could be attached at Miami later this weekend/early next week should the Hurricanes move on from Manny Diaz, a source with familiarity of Miami’s thinking said
Thursday the Hurricanes would focus first on Oregon coach Mario Cristobol. The source said he believed Kiffin would be at Ole Miss in 2022.
If that’s the case, Kiffin can hit the recruiting trail Sunday selling stability to go with the momentum inside and around the Rebels’ program. He can also tell recruits Ole Miss can win in a plethora of ways. It’s certainly the truth.
At the beginning of the season, Ole Miss’ offense was electric. The Rebels were the fastest show on turf, just blitzing defenses with speed and an arsenal of offensive weapons. Then Ole Miss’ receivers began to fall, one by one. Throw in the loss of a couple of offensive linemen and an ankle injury to quarterback Matt Corral and the Rebels’ offense slowed down, both literally and in every major statistical category.
Enter DJ Durkin and Chris Partridge’s defense. Slowly but surely, Ole Miss’ defense found its footing this season, and by mid-October, they were carrying some of the slack. In November, as Kiffin and offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby mixed and matched players and modes of attack, it was the defense that stole the show in wins over Liberty, Texas A&M and, of course, Mississippi State.
No one is ever going to confuse the Rebels’ defense with the ’85 Bears of 2011 Alabama, but Sam Williams, Chance Campbell, Jake Springer and Co. absolutely showed some backbone over the course of the season. On Thursday night, as Williams began to exert his will via pass rush, Ole Miss' defense was downright dominant late. It let the Rebels improve from the .500 club it was in 2020 to a team that will wake up Sunday morning ranked somewhere around sixth nationally.
Ole Miss is one of the most exciting products in college football. However, there’s plenty of room for growth moving forward — on multiple fronts.
Kiffin, per sources, is frustrated with fan support. Per a source, he saw lots of empty seats for the Rebels’ home finale against Vanderbilt and wondered why Ole Miss didn’t draw like Auburn or Tennessee did when the Rebels visited those locales. Per a source, Kiffin feels like he’s connected with younger fans, but has a sense the older fans aren’t crazy about him.
Then there’s recruiting, and Kiffin can’t blame that on anyone. I suspect he knows it. Per multiple sources, both inside and outside the program, the Rebels’ recruiting efforts have at times been a disorganized mess, and much of the blame goes to Kiffin. Evaluations change, decisions change, etc., and that sometimes occur out of the blue, leading to a less than optimal approach. There’s a tremendous dependence on the transfer portal, per sources, and there’s concern that it might be difficult to win as many of those battles as might be necessary to avoid a fall-off in 2022.
There are still questions within the industry about Kiffin. No one doubts that he can take talent and turn it into an explosive offense. It’s obvious he’s literally unafraid to take chances during games, a trait that can frustrate fans but also confound opposing coaches.
However, people still wonder if Kiffin can truly build a program? Can he win a recruiting battle as a head coach for an elite quarterback and build a team around him? Can he recruit the way one must to win nationally today? Can he balance the allure of the transfer portal with landing elite high school talent?
Kiffin needs to hit the recruiting trail Sunday, and he needs to hit it hard. There’s not a ton of room in the 2022 class. The roster — and this isn’t necessarily the fault of the current staff — is a bit of a mess. The offseason, frankly, requires attrition. Salvaging some lofty recruiting ranking that would appease fans obsessed with those things likely isn’t possible. However, the 2023 class is absolutely critical for the long-term success of the Ole Miss program. Everyone inside the Manning Center knows it.
Of course, all of that can wait a couple of days. There’s time to rest, reflect and celebrate when the Rebels get back to Oxford.
Two years ago, Ole Miss left Starkville without the Golden Egg and with plenty of egg on its collective face. Days later, Ole Miss fired Matt Luke and began a search, hoping to find a coach who could return the Rebels to relevancy.
Check.
Two years later, Ole Miss left Starkville with the aforementioned trophy in tow, more relevant as a program than it has been since 2015 (and maybe long before that). The search that begins now is the one for the path to consistency and title contention.
