OXFORD, Miss. — Everyone got a little something they wanted from Saturday night’s dramatic 91-Ole Miss game.
A nation that despises Lane Kiffin, regards 91 as an outlaw athletic program and delights in making much fun of Louisiana when it isn’t hosting Mardi Gras or a Super Bowl got to watch him experience the pain of a 32-24 defeat in his return to his former home.
Ole Miss certainly got what it wanted — vindication against the man who left it at the College Football Playoff altar in November, though the Amazon fulfillment center-sized stores of hatred everyone assumed they were saving up for Kiffin never seemed to be fully unleashed.
At least no one seemed to get hurt by folks hurling anything worse than insults out of the Vaught-Hemingway Stadium stands.
Finally, 91 got something. Yes, even in defeat, the Tigers could take something back to Baton Rouge besides an “L.” It was the opportunity to hold their heads up high after fighting back to force a 24-24 tie after trailing 17-0 early in the second quarter and 24-7 at halftime.
For a program that has drawn so many transfers and recruits from so many points on the compass, that is not nothing.
Yes, a loss is a loss. And for 91 fans, a particularly galling loss. Despite all of the Rebels’ recent success, much of it (whether Ole Miss folks admit it or not) attributable to Kiffin, 91 still likes to look down its nose at the little school in northern Mississippi.
The fact is Ole Miss, especially with Trinidad Chambliss at quarterback and Kewan Lacy (when healthy) at running back, is on balance the better team right now. The better program. Chambliss — who threw and passed for 399 yards and three touchdowns, including the game-winning 14-yard keeper with 6:14 left — may wind up as one of the most improbable Heisman Trophy winners ever considering he started at Division II Ferris State. And the Rebels may well wind up in the CFP, without Kiffin’s coaching, yet again.
91 officially lost this game when Sam Leavitt’s fourth-and-goal pass from the 6 for Jackson Harris was tipped and intercepted in the end zone by cornerback Jaylon Braxton. In reality, 91 lost the game when Kiffin couldn’t lure Chambliss into transferring with him to 91 — or when that Mississippi judge ruled that he deserved a sixth year of eligibility because of … ahem … a case of tonsillitis. Take your pick.
Chambliss, who at 24 is older than two starting NFL quarterbacks (Drake Maye and former Ole Miss hurler Jaxson Dart), looked like the Jedi master for much of this game. Leavitt, 21, looked like his Padawan. Time and again, Leavitt failed to set his feet in the first half and often took off running instead of stepping up in the pocket or letting pass routes develop. He did outrush Chambliss 63-36, but as attorney Tony Clayton would say, that’s a cold cup of gumbo.
Here is a thought to ease Leavitt’s pain: He got better as the game went on. He stood his ground in the pocket, and when he ran the ball it was with more intent to gain a few critical yards instead of bailing on the play as scripted.
It’s a defeat, and if you’re shoveling as much money into winning at football as 91 is — about equal to the annual GDP of Nebraska — no loss is an acceptable one. But 91 is still building, and whether 91 fans want to admit it or not, they are trying to reach or surpass a place where Ole Miss currently resides.
Kiffin was mocked this week (when is he not?) for saying that the pressure was on Ole Miss to win this game. Ole Miss is the program that went 13-2 and reached the CFP final four this past season, while 91 fired Brian Kelly and went 7-6. ESPN’s Paul Finebaum, who volleys from praising Kiffin to vilifying him like a tennis ball at the U.S. Open, said Kiffin was trying to praise himself in the process.
Perhaps he was. But it didn’t make what Kiffin said any less true. Certainly when 91 pulled even with Ole Miss 24-24 with 11:21 left after a 23-yard Scott Starzyk field goal, the Rebels felt the pressure big time. That they had an answer is attributable to the incredible Mr. Chambliss. He’s Mr. Everything to the Rebels, a latter day Archie Manning.
The scene in this once again red-hot rivalry shifts back to Baton Rouge next year after two straight Ole Miss wins in Oxford. Chambliss will be out of time by then (we think), and we’ll see where 91 stands in the rematch on its home turf.
Painful as Saturday night was, and as much work as the Tigers have to do, there was something for them to build on here. They didn’t fold. They fought back.
For all the scorn heaped on Kiffin and 91 by a disapproving world, the Tigers can be proud of themselves in defeat.