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Finally, Lane Kiffin got one.
Ole Miss took down Georgia 28-10 in a game that Kiffin’s squad needed to keep its Playoff hopes alive. It marked the second time in program history that Ole Miss took down a top-2 team in the AP Poll, it marked the highest-ranked win of Kiffin’s career and it was the highest ranked win at home in program history.
It also marked the first time that Georgia lost to a non-Alabama team since the Florida loss in 2020 — that streak of 52 consecutive wins vs. non-Alabama teams ended — which was also the last time that Kirby Smart’s team suffered 2 regular-season losses.
Here are 3 takeaways from Ole Miss’ win against Georgia:
1. Ole Miss finally showed the grit needed to win a matchup like that
With no Tre Harris, no Henry Parrish Jr. and a brief Jaxson Dart exit after the first series of the game — an interception to Georgia that the Dawgs turned into 7 points — it felt a bit like Ole Miss was about to turtle in a big game yet again. Then all it did was deliver a performance for the ages.
The transfer portal moves to beef up the Ole Miss defense shined in the biggest possible moments. Carson Beck couldn’t string scoring drives together and Georgia’s 2-headed rushing attack of Nate Frazier and Trevor Etienne was bottled up. Princely Umanmielen and Suntarine Perkins did the heavy lifting, just as they’ve been doing all year. Ole Miss even shook off a brief injury scare to JJ Pegues, who returned to action after some friendly fire forced him out with a leg injury.
But nobody was quite as gritty as Dart, who limped off the field and into the medical tent after he was crunched by a pair of Georgia defenders in a horrendous opening series that ended with an interception. After Austin Simmons led an Ole Miss scoring drive, Dart returned to the game and played one of the more impressive games of his career.
It wasn’t a statistical game for the ages — he had 199 passing yards and just 1 TD pass but the TD pass to Juice Wells was pivotal — but Dart’s toughness will be talked about in Oxford for a long time.
2. Georgia’s offense is an absolute mess
Awful. As much as Ole Miss deserves credit for making all the right defensive moves, the UGA offense continued its maddening season. Carson Beck was only intercepted once, but it was on 4th and 10 in the red zone when UGA was trailing 22-10 in the 4th quarter.
The Dawgs put the ball on the turf 3 times and they allowed 9 tackles for loss. For a group who didn’t have a single scrimmage play of 30 yards, that was a disastrous development. Beck couldn’t put on his cape late and overcome a bad start, and the Dawgs couldn’t force turnovers to bail them out like they did on that opening-drive interception of Dart.
UGA will face another elite defense next week against Tennessee. Sure, that game is in Athens, but Georgia’s offense has a ton to figure out if it wants to win its 8th consecutive game against the Vols.
3. Will both of these teams make the Playoff? It feels possible
Georgia had some margin for error heading into Saturday because it ranked No. 1 in strength of schedule in America. A loss certainly didn’t kill UGA’s 12-team Playoff hopes. Whether that’ll be on the line next weekend against Tennessee remains to be seen. The selection committee’s ranking of the Dawgs on Tuesday will be pivotal.
As for Ole Miss, 10-2 suddenly feels like the most likely result with 2 games to play. Kiffin’s squad should be favored by a large margin at Florida and vs. Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl. It should be in the top 10 on Tuesday night.
After an October to forget, Ole Miss got the November victory it so desperately needed.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
