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Paul Finebaum explains why 2-loss Ole Miss isn’t eliminated from the CFP discussion
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Paul Finebaum isn’t ready to exclude Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss from the College Football Playoff picture. At least not yet.
The ESPN college football analyst was asked during his weekly Monday morning visit on the “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning” show about the Rebels, who suffered an excruciating overtime loss on Saturday night at LSU and now carry the burden of having 2 losses in 2024. Some might say that disqualifies Kiffin’s team from Playoff consideration, even with the Playoff being 12 teams and allowing more margin for error.
“No, because they still have one game left that could help them, and that’s the Georgia game,” said Finebaum about Ole Miss being eliminated. “But you don’t know really how big that game is going to be if Georgia doesn’t get by Texas. I think they are clearly hanging by a thread, and I realize we’ve forgotten Missouri, but that’s not difficult to do based on how they’ve played recently.”
Finebaum discussed how Ole Miss has failed to live up to its lofty preseason expectations.
“I think Ole Miss has had a pretty disastrous couple of weeks here. And it’s more frustrating than normal because of expectations,” said Finebaum. “And that’s what everything is based on, you guys know that. This was Lane Kiffin’s best team, the best team at Ole Miss since the 60s, and, yes, they had the lead until the final play of regulation (vs. LSU). But back to the Alabama conversation, what do we remember? The result.”
The 5-2 Rebels dropped 9 spots to No. 18 in Sunday’s new AP Poll and will sit and stew this week as they have a bye before hosting Oklahoma in Week 9.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
