The Ole Miss Rebels may need been essentially the most fascinating workforce getting into the 2025 Faculty Soccer Playoff. Largely because of the drama surrounding them.
They grew to become the poster baby of the fashionable school sports activities panorama when head coach Lane Kiffin, following the most effective common season in program historical past, bolted for a convention rival in LSU, leaving this system and not using a head coach earlier than the beginning of the playoffs.
What kind of impression would which have?
Even with that query, Ole Miss nonetheless entered the first-round as heavy favorites towards Tulane, a workforce that many within the school soccer neighborhood didn’t suppose belonged, and a workforce that Ole Miss already routed earlier this season.
It was a sport that Ole Miss was anticipated to win, head coach or no head coach.
It gained. Convincingly. Routing Tulane for the second time this season, 41-10, to advance to the quarterfinals of the CFP the place it’s going to play No. 3 Georgia within the Sugar Bowl.
That’s the place Ole Miss will actually be examined.
Ole Miss met expectations, now the actual problem is forward
Even with out Kiffin on the sidelines, there was little or no doubt Ole Miss would roll on Saturday. And it did. However issues are going to be considerably harder in a really brief time period, as a result of now it’s going to have to determine a approach to get by among the best groups within the nation.
Additionally the one workforce to beat Ole Miss all season.
Georgia beat Ole Miss, 43-35, earlier this season in a sport the Rebels needed to really feel like they let slip away. Ole Miss entered the fourth quarter of that sport with a two-possession lead, solely to be outscored17-0 within the ultimate quarter.
It’s the solely lack of the season for Ole Miss.
Now it has to attempt to avenge that defeat with an interim head coach.
The opposite large subject for Ole Miss in that sport could possibly be the standing of star working again Kewan Lacy.
Lacy was shaken up on this sport and appeared to be lower than one hundred pc after a visit to the medical tent. He rushed for 87 yards on 15 carries with a landing within the win and helped set the tone early within the sport. If they’re going to have an opportunity at beating Georgia, they are going to possible want him to solely be wholesome, but additionally e an impression participant.
Ole Miss proved on Saturday it might probably overwhelm a second-tier workforce, and it did so from the opening kickoff. It moved proper down the sector in lower than a minute to open the scoring, then jumped out to a 14-0 lead halfway by the primary quarter. Tulane by no means acquired any nearer at any level within the sport. Now it wants to point out it may be the really elite groups within the nation.
