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Lane Kiffin took a parting shot at the College Football Playoff selection committee following a Gator Bowl pasting of Duke on Friday night. In the postgame interview with ESPN’s Taylor McGregor, Kiffin said his team wanted to go out and make a statement to “a committee that left them out.” The Ole Miss coach spent a month chiding the Playoff committee for putting 2 ACC teams into the field and, after a 52-20 win over what was a 9-3 Duke team, Kiffin again poked at the ACC.
But the blowout win was about more than just the CFP. After a second consecutive 10-win season was secured, Kiffin said the Rebels were just getting started.
Asked about those comments in the postgame press conference, Lane Kiffin doubled down.
“Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have been so confident if we hadn’t done some of this before,” he said. “I feel like when Matt Corral left, I feel like a lot of people thought we’re going to have this downswing and that was just kind of a Matt Corral thing.
“Our team, I know we won 10 games, we won 11 the year before, that’s 21 in 2 years, but our team this year was a better team. We lost 3 one-score games.”
Ole Miss suffered losses this season to Florida on the road by 7, to LSU on the road by 3 in overtime, and to Kentucky at home by 3. The Rebels blasted South Carolin 27-3 on the road and hammered Georgia 28-10 at home.
They became a nightmare for the Playoff selection committee as a 9-win SEC team with arguably one of the best wins in the country and arguably one of the worst losses of any of the Playoff contenders.
Given the win over Georgia, missing the CFP and ending the year in the Gator Bowl will disappoint many throughout the fanbase. But thinks his program is still ascending.
“My point is we can keep getting better, just continuing to add players and add pieces and keeping our staff together, too, which has been very critical,” Kiffin said. “I feel like this was the first year where all 3 coordinators, we were able to keep them maybe the whole time that we’ve been here. We’ve always lost one or two of them every year.”
The Rebels have once again been active in the transfer portal, with 15 transfer commitments already pledged to another top-5 class. Ole Miss will be replacing an important quarterback, but Kiffin seems confident in the foundation that has been set.
“I hope that regardless of how wins and losses go, I hope that our fans appreciate this time frame of what’s going on with Ole Miss football,” he said.
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.
