Lane Kiffin has left for LSU, and the theories that an 11-1 Ole Miss football team will miss the College Football Playoff (CFP) have officially arrived.
Despite winning every game but a road clash with SEC Championship Game participant Georgia, which they were beating in the fourth quarter, the Rebels may be at risk of not being among the 12 teams in this year's playoff. The self-proclaimed college football ‘commissioner' Josh Pate explained how that could be the case.
“You want a real chaos scenario — Ole Miss is sitting there as the projected seven seed right now,” Pate said on ‘Bussin' With The Boys'. “Coaching staff leaves, and the committee has it in their protocol to redefine how good a team is if you’ve lost a player, like Jordan Travis in 2023, or if you lose coaches — Ole Miss this year. So there is this world where the committee looks at Ole Miss and says, ‘Sorry, guys.' That’s chaos.”
The move, although not unprecedented in the CFP's history, would be a first under the expanded, 12-team system that took effect last season. And it would be sure to rile up many fanbases, and not only the one in Oxford.
Since the playoff committee began ranking teams starting on Nov. 4, Ole Miss has floated between sixth and seventh; the Rebels dropped behind Texas Tech on Nov. 11, rose a spot with Alabama losing the following week, and fell back to seventh, behind Oregon, in last week's rankings.
Depending on how the committee views the reported exodus of the Ole Miss offensive coaching staff, though, there is a possibility several two-loss teams jump Ole Miss, including No. 8 Oklahoma, which lost to the Rebels, No. 9 Notre Dame, and No. 10 Alabama, which will play Georgia for the conference title game this weekend in Atlanta. There is even a chance, albeit relatively remote, that 9-3 Texas, which beat undefeated No. 3 Texas A&M this past weekend, could be one of the playoff's 12 teams while Ole Miss is not.
Ole Miss, which promoted defensive coordinator Pete Golding to head coach following Kiffin's departure for LSU, has two CFP Top 25 wins (Oklahoma and Tulane) and a ‘quality loss' to currently fourth-ranked Georgia. Since the defeat in Athens, in which the Bulldogs erased a 35-26 fourth-quarter deficit to win 43-35.
The committee is set to release its penultimate rankings tonight. The final rankings and thus the playoff field will be revealed on Sunday.
