OXFORD — There will be four College Football Playoff games played around the country Friday night and Saturday.

Ole Miss won’t be in any of them.

The Rebels don’t play until Jan. 2 when they face Duke in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla. That game, a battle between two 9-3 teams, has no postseason significance, but Ole Miss is taking it seriously.

“We made an oath here to finish it out and do the right thing and we built this team up,” Ole Miss defensive tackle JJ Pegues said Tuesday. “So it’s only right to finish it.”

Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said Tuesday only linebacker Pooh Paul, who on Saturday announced his intention to leave college early for the NFL Draft, won’t play against the Blue Devils.

Offensive lineman Micah Pettus is no longer with the team, and wide receiver Tre Harris has a groin injury, but for the most part, the Ole Miss team that came oh-so-close to the CFP is going to finish the season together.

“I think that really speaks volumes to a lot of things,” Kiffin said. “That says a lot about the culture in the locker room. It says a lot about how they feel about each other. There are some guys with very high draft grades and they’re still playing.”

“We all want to leave this place better than how we found it,” said Pegues, an Oxford native who began his career at Auburn before transferring to Ole Miss three years ago. “For me, being from here, wearing the jersey one more time, representing Chucky Mullins’ 38 is a big thing and a part of me, so being able to do that and honor him should speak louder than anything.

“We built something special. We started something special and we want to finish it the right way.”

Quarterback Jaxson Dart, who shattered the Ole Miss record book in his three seasons in Oxford after transferring from USC, said Tuesday there “wasn’t any doubt” that he’d play one final game in a Rebel uniform before handing over the controls to Austin Simmons.

“I never even had a second thought about it,” Dart said. “I’m just excited to go compete one last time with the guys.

“I think it just shows the bond that we have with one another. There are a lot of guys who have cases to be first-rounders and whatnot, but we kind of just came together and said we want to finish this the way that we started it. There were just pretty easy conversations.”

Dart said he and his teammates are aware of the calendar speeding toward the holidays and to January. That sense of the end of the season has made the time together even more precious, he said.

‘I think we’re trying to take in all the time that we have together,” Dart said. “We’re having a lot of fun at practice and the days are counting down, especially for me. You just want to make the most of the time that you have with each other.”

Ole Miss departs for Jacksonville on Dec. 29.