NCAA Football: LSU Tigers vs Ole Miss Rebels
Photo By: Evan Farrell

By Billy Watkins

A friend messaged me Monday.

He has been attending Ole Miss football games since he was a child. Graduated from the university in 1988. A season ticket holder for nearly three decades. Sat in his seat through the good times and bad. Always stayed until the end.

Until last Saturday night.

Until he watched his Rebels get hammered 28-0 in the first half by the Georgia Bulldogs — now ranked No. 1 in the nation.

“What I saw was not acceptable,” he wrote.

So he left at halftime for the first time in his life.

“And it wasn’t a hard decision,” he said. “Because this is how I felt: If the players are going to play like they don’t care, then why should I? They looked like they were going through the motions in a game that presented so much opportunity.”

As he drove home to the Delta, my friend waited a while before finding the game on the radio. Final: Georgia 42, Ole Miss 7.  

The loss left Ole Miss at 6-3 overall, 4-3 in the SEC and ranked 19th in the latest College Football Playoffs poll. The chances of making the postseason tournament appear slim.

“I love my Rebels. I do,” he wrote. “I sacrifice to go to the games. I can take losing. I’ve proven that. But I can’t take not playing up to your potential, not fighting. No, it wasn’t all the players. I don’t want to take away from those who did play hard. But as a team, I didn’t like what I saw.”

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I’m certain he wasn’t the only one of the 68,814 in attendance who left early.

Georgia was favored to win the game but not by 35 points. Kirby Smart had been game-planning for that matchup since Ole Miss beat the Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl/quarterfinals of the College Football Playoffs a year ago. He admitted that to the TV crew during a pregame sit-down.

It is not a good thing to be circled on the calendar by Georgia, arguably the best program in America. 

But Ole Miss had whipped Georgia in two of the past three meetings. And with Trinidad Chambliss at quarterback, all things seemed possible. 

And that’s where we’re going in this week’s column. 

During the preseason, Ole Miss —  coming off a 13-2 season — was labeled a playoff team. Chambliss was one of favorites to win the Heisman Trophy. The portal class looked solid and appeared to fill a lot of needs in defensive coordinator Pete Golding’s first full season as head coach. It seemed Ole Miss was set up for another 10- or 11-win regular season. 

I can recall another time in Ole Miss history when a team seemed to have everything aligned to challenge for a national championship.

In 1970, led by quarterback Archie Manning, Ole Miss was coming off an 8-3 season with two of the losses by one point. It defeated Arkansas, one of the top three teams in the country, in the Sugar Bowl. Archie told me once: “That’s one of the best teams we ever played during my time at Ole Miss. They were big and tough and athletic. That win gave us a lot of confidence.”

But life sometimes gets in the way, even in football. 

Ole Miss started the ’70 season 5-0, beating Alabama 48-23 in Jackson on national television and Georgia on the road 31-21.

But in one of the greatest upsets Ole Miss has ever suffered, Southern Mississippi traveled to Oxford and beat the Rebels 30-14. What most people didn’t know was that Archie had a pulled groin and could barely run. That’s taking nothing away from USM’s gutty performance. 

The Rebels bounced back to beat Vanderbilt the next week to move to 6-1.

Then the house caved in.

Legendary head coach Johnny Vaught suffered a heart attack during the bye week. He was sidelined the rest of the season. Offensive line coach Bruiser Kinard filled in.

Houston, a talented and extremely physical team, was next up. It had whipped Ole Miss the two previous years 29-7 and 25-11. Both games were slobber-knockers.

Ole Miss sought revenge on Nov. 7 — 56 years ago to the day of last weekend’s mauling. And the Rebels got it, beating the Cougars 24-13. 

The victory came at a huge price. Archie suffered a broken left arm in the third quarter. The Rebels lost three of their final four games and finished 7-4 overall, 4-2 in the SEC and No. 20 nationally.

Nobody saw those events coming. just like today’s fans didn’t see three losses by the first week in November.

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So what’s happened nine games in? Why have the Rebels been blown out by Florida and Georgia? Why did they fall so far behind in the first half at Texas that they simply couldn’t catch up in the final two quarters? What has happened to the team that showed so much grit and emotion in a victory over LSU and Lane Kiffin?

I’ve learned this in 51 years of covering football: When players begin to perform below their proven level, it’s usually due to injury. 

Chambliss hasn’t been himself the past few games. I would bet that at some point we will learn he has been battling some type of injury, something that has limited his magic. 

The loss of running back Kewan Lacy — a preseason first-team All-America choice by the Associated Press, CBS Sports and ESPN — has been enormous. He was injured in the season opener, tried for several games to play through it, but a dislocated shoulder against Texas has most likely ended his season.

That duo of Chambliss and Lacy won a lot of games last year when both stayed relatively injury free. Imagine a defensive coordinator trying to game plan against those two.

Surprisingly, the offense is averaging 33.78 points per game, just three fewer than last season’s. But it has seemed predictable at times and has already committed 14 turnovers through nine games — the same number the 2025 team committed in 15 games.

The defense has been puzzling, ranking at or near the bottom of the SEC. Portal transfers took on key positions. Few have lived up to expectations. 

Players appear to be making the same mistakes game after game. Missed tackles. Ends losing contain. Blown coverages. 

Film Guy, who masterfully breaks down games each week online, questions why the Rebels slant and play so many twists and games up front, often opening up wide holes for running backs.

Film Guy wonders why the Rebels, with a talented front that includes Will Echoles, Kam Franklin, Jamarious Brown and others, don’t play more straight up. Challenge the guy across from you to whip me if you can. He believes the players are talented enough to do that.

Many fans and media members are saying Golding will find it difficult to continue handling head-coaching duties while also serving as the defensive play caller. They have a point, and that will be something to watch in the offseason.

One other thing I’ve learned in my years of covering this sport: Strange things happen in November. 

Ole Miss has not been cast into oblivion with three games remaining. It travels to Oklahoma as a 1.5-point favorite to win Saturday’s 3:15 p.m. showdown. The regular season ends with home games against Wofford and Mississippi State.

Analytics before the Georgia game said Ole Miss’ chances of making the playoffs were better with a loss to Georgia and a victory over Oklahoma than the other way around, which seems strange to this math-challenged scribe. So a victory keeps playoff hopes kicking, depending on what a lot of other teams do.

But one vital question looms: Did the lopsided loss to Georgia serve as motivation or devastation?

We will know the answer early Saturday evening.

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