After Georgia hammered Ole Miss 42-7, the Rebels’ path back to the College Football Playoff got a whole lot narrower. Ole Miss is now 6-3 overall and 4-3 in the SEC, sitting 19th in the latest playoff rankings. That leaves them needing plenty of help ahead of them, plus wins over Oklahoma this weekend and Mississippi State in two weeks.
That kind of loss tends to send message boards into overdrive, and Ole Miss has not been spared. The usual hunt for a culprit is in full swing, with rumors and wild theories spreading fast after the Georgia beatdown and the looming possibility of missing the playoff.
The more straightforward explanation, though, starts with availability. Kewan Lacy, who is described as Ole Miss’ second best offensive player, is done for the year.
He played only 2.5 of 12 quarters against Florida, Texas and Georgia - all losses - and that stretch came after a season in which he piled up 335 total touches across 15 games without a serious injury. In those 15 games last year, he had seven in which he touched the ball at least 25 times.
This season, the workload never came close to that level. Lacy appeared in six games and logged 88 total touches, with zero games of 25 or more touches. That’s not a small detail.
The injuries haven’t stopped there, either. Ole Miss has dealt with problems in the secondary from the start of the season, and the first-choice lineup still hasn’t managed to play a full game together.
Turnovers have also been a major issue. Trinidad Chambliss is Ole Miss’s best offensive player, but he has 12 total turnovers this season - nine interceptions and three fumbles.
Not all of them are entirely on him, but that kind of number in nine games is hard to survive. Seven of those turnovers came in the losses to Florida, Texas and Georgia, where he had two, three and two turnovers, respectively.
For comparison, Chambliss had just four total turnovers last season in 13 starts, with three interceptions and one fumble. As the numbers show, life gets a lot easier when the ball isn’t constantly being handed over to the other team.
And with that, the message-board frenzy can keep doing what it does best.
In Other News...
Ole Miss Suddenly Faces A Travel Mess Before Oklahoma
Ole Miss found itself dealing with an unexpected wrinkle before its trip to Norman on Friday night, when the team was unable to fly out because of an FAA airspace grounding tied to a telecommunication outage. What should have been a routine pregame travel day instead turned into a logistics headache, with the Rebels forced to reset their plans while trying to keep the focus on an important Week 11 matchup.
The team was scheduled to travel Saturday morning, but the disruption left the timing of the trip and the game itself in flux, with a possible move to Sunday still being considered. Ole Miss was hardly alone in the mess, as other college football programs around the country also had to navigate travel delays and scheduling uncertainty heading into the weekend. [Read more 🡒]
Ole Miss Just Lost A Huge Piece Of Its Playoff Push
Ole Miss has been forced to move deeper into its backfield rotation after losing Kewan Lacy for the rest of the season because of a left shoulder injury. Lacy first hurt the shoulder against LSU, then aggravated it again later against Texas, and the setback has kept him out of the Rebels recent games as they try to stay on track in the playoff race.
His absence matters because Lacy had become a meaningful part of the offense during his college career, giving Ole Miss another runner it could lean on in key spots. Now the Rebels are turning to junior Makhi Frazier to help fill the gap, and how well that adjustment holds up could shape the rest of the push. [Read more 🡒]
Ole Miss Faces A Major O-Line Test At Oklahoma
Ole Miss is heading into a familiar road environment with a new wrinkle up front, as Troy Everett is expected to step in at guard against Oklahoma after Patrick Kutas was injured. It will be Everetts first start of the season, and it comes at a time when the Rebels are already dealing with the kind of line shuffle that can change the feel of an offense before the opening snap.
The matchup also sends Ole Miss back to Oklahomas stadium for a second straight season, adding another layer of difficulty to a game that already figures to test communication and physicality in the trenches. For a Rebels team trying to keep its protection intact on the road, how Everett handles the assignment could become one of the quieter but more important storylines of the night. [Read more 🡒]