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Ole Miss closed out the 2024 season on Thursday with a 52-20 beatdown of Duke in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl.
The Rebels produced 340 yards of offense in the first half and cruised to an easy win over a Duke team that won 9 games during the regular season. The result pushed Ole Miss to 10 wins on the season, securing a third double-digit-win season in 4 full years under Lane Kiffin.
Here are 3 takeaways from the game.
A long farewell to Jaxson Dart
Jaxson Dart moved to fourth all-time among SEC players in career total offense with his performance on Thursday night. The super senior completed 27 of his 35 passes for 404 yards and 4 touchdowns. He added 43 rushing yards. In his final game, Dart diced the Blue Devils all night long.
He opened the scoring with a 32-yard touchdown pass to Juice Wells. He had a 21-yard touchdown to Dae’Quan Wright in the second quarter on a beautifully-placed fade ball. He had a 19-yard scramble to convert a third-and-19 in the second quarter. And he had this filth.
Dart will end his season as the program’s record-holder for single-season passing yards and total offense. He was a Manning Award finalist. He was an All-SEC First Team selection. He should be drafted in this summer’s NFL Draft.
And, frankly, he should be drafted quite high. I’d take Dart before Quinn Ewers or Jalen Milroe — 2 players who sat ahead of him on Mel Kiper Jr.’s latest big board for ESPN — and I’d do so without much hesitation. There aren’t many quarterbacks in the country who throw the deep ball as well as Dart does.
Ole Miss is going to miss him. Dart has helped produce back-to-back 10-win seasons at Ole Miss. Prior to his arrival, the Rebels hadn’t done that since 1959-60. Austin Simmons looked promising in his limited action this season, but he has big shoes to fill.
Defense does it again
The Rebel defense gave up 14 points. Duke’s third score came from a 99-yard kickoff return with a little over a minute remaining. All year long, the defense was dominant and it closed the season with another stout performance.
Of course, it wasn’t exactly a fair fight. Duke was thinned out by the portal, missing starting quarterback Maalik Murphy. That forced Henry Belin IV into action. The Rebels took an interception off Belin in the third quarter and returned it 50 yards for a score. They held him to just 5.4 yards per pass on the evening. And while Ole Miss didn’t record any sacks, the Rebels completely stonewalled the ground game.
Duke ran it 23 times for 44 yards. The Rebels held their opponents to 6-for-17 on third down and to just 4 yards per play on first down.
About the Playoff…
Lane Kiffin has not been shy about his displeasure with the College Football Playoff selection committee. Kiffin watched alongside us as the first round was marred by blowouts. On Wednesday, Texas needed a fortuitous call late in the fourth quarter to survive Arizona State. Then, on Thursday, Georgia played an ugly game in a 13-point loss to Notre Dame.
South Carolina lost its bowl game. Alabama lost its bowl game. Texas A&M lost its bowl game. Tennessee got smoked in the CFP. Georgia lost. Texas looks like the weakest of the 4 Playoff semifinalists.
The SEC got 3 teams into the Playoff. A great many people whined about 1 very specific team that was left out of the field. Ole Miss couldn’t really complain too loudly; it lost to a ghastly Kentucky team and then lost in a must-win spot to Florida late in the year.
I felt for most of the season that Ole Miss was the best team in the SEC. I felt that after the Rebels beat Georgia, and I still felt it on Selection Sunday when they were excluded from the CFP.
Game on Paper‘s opponent-adjusted net EPA-per-play metric aligns perfectly with the Playoff semifinal participants. The four teams that lead the FBS in that specific statistic are the 4 teams left standing in the CFP. Texas is fourth. Ole Miss is seventh, higher than Tennessee, higher than Alabama, and almost 40 spots higher than SEC champ Georgia.
Ole Miss at its best can beat Texas. Ole Miss at its best smoked Georgia. Ole Miss at its best flattened South Carolina.
I can’t argue Ole Miss was more deserving than the teams that got in over it. But I do still believe Ole Miss was better. Ole Miss just wasn’t at its best consistently enough this season.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
