Ole Miss football has been in the midst of some exciting times ever since they’ve adapted to the modern-era of college football with Lane Kiffin leading the way. Though Kiffin has consistently expressed his displeasure with the current transfer portal system, that won’t stop him from playing by the ‘rules’ to best set up the Rebels for both short and long term success.
He’s been adamant about both sides and the proof is in the pudding heading into the 2024 season, as Ole Miss’ fifth-year head coach has the Rebels right on schedule.
Kiffin now has four seasons under his belt in Oxford and has constructed arguably Ole Miss’ most talented roster ever, in a year where a dozen teams will qualify for the College Football Playoffs. It’s taken time since there are critical pieces scattered around the roster from Ole Miss’ 2022, 2023 and 2024 portal classes, each ranking in 247Sports’ top five in their respective offseasons.
However, the timeline couldn’t have been better for a program that’s emerging as one of the top brands in the country.
That being said, with about three months between now and kickoff, what are acceptable results for a 2024 Ole Miss team that has rapidly captured the nation’s attention again with their unique roster building abilities?
However, the timeline couldn’t have been better for a program that’s emerging as one of the top brands in the country.
That being said, with about three months between now and kickoff, what are acceptable results for a 2024 Ole Miss team that has rapidly captured the nation’s attention again with their unique roster building abilities?
It’s a question many are weighing in on and will likely continue to weigh in on until the Rebels’ upcoming season is ultimately finished.
“With great expectations come questions like these: ‘Is it enough to just make the playoffs?’. Now this is an absurd question in the old school (days). In the old four-team era, Ole Miss making the playoffs would be insane. It’d be like the win of all wins, but think about this with me…how thoroughly all of the chips have been pushed into the middle of the table for this year. I’m thinking about Jaxson Dart coming back. I’m thinking about everything seemingly having been built to 2024, how aggressive they were in the transfer portal and the fact that 12 teams are gonna make this thing now,” CBS’ Josh Pate said of Ole Miss earlier this week.
Pate’s discussion had me thinking.
No doubt about it, even though Ole Miss has never qualified for the CFP before, it’s playoffs or bust for the Rebels in Kiffin’s fifth season. Of course it’s not that his job would be in jeopardy if Ole Miss were to miss the cut, it would just be one of the biggest disappointments of the season, maybe one of the biggest of the modern era as well.
Even then, is just making the playoffs good enough for Ole Miss in 2024?
It certainly won’t be a piece of cake, but the quick and easy answer is absolutely not (assuming key players are relatively healthy).
Ole Miss has loaded up for the upcoming season with expectations to compete with the elite. The aspect Kiffin has put the most emphasis on this offseason, as far as his roster went, was how he was going to counter a team with great smarts and measurables like the Georgia Bulldogs. A team that has won two of the last three national championships and a team that took an 11-win Ole Miss to the woodshed last November. That night was the closest Kiffin’s Rebels have been to a CFP game.
“If I could tell (Ole Miss fans) right now (that) you’ll make the playoffs, lose in the first round and you’re out. Is that good enough for you? Georgia folks would say ‘no’, Ohio State folks would say ‘no’ to that. This is Ole Miss, rarified air we’re talking about,” Pate added. “Lane Kiffin has never taken his team to the playoffs, they’ve never had — at least an odds mark that looks this favorable. Would (fans) be happy (just) making the playoffs? I sort of think the answer is ‘no’. I think they’re expectation level is higher than that.”
Most would agree, but more importantly, the expectation level is certainly higher than just going ‘one and done’ inside the Manning Center.
The Rebels are all in and have as big of aspirations as anybody going into the 2024 season. That’s why they were able to sell championship hopes to not only incoming transfers, but also potentially outgoing starters.
“We had just come off of doing something that’s never been done in the school history – and I saw the little pieces that had potential to come back. I think the more and more conversations that we have amongst each other as players, we saw the potential of what we could do and what the future would look like here…I think when it’s all said and done, we just felt as a team that it was going to be the best option for us to leave a legacy here,” Dart previously explained of his return to Ole Miss for his senior season.
What would be deemed a success past the regular season?
Well, let’s be honest, it’s hard to expect a championship right off the bat, but of course that’s the goal. Veteran players will likely say it’s championship or bust.
However, if a championship is not ultimately captured, there are still some situations that the program could hold their head high on. One scenario could be hosting a playoff game and potentially reaching a New Year’s Six bowl game in their first CFP appearance. They’ve been in center stage bowl games before. Still, much easier said than done.
It may take a few years, it may only take a few months, but Ole Miss is hoping to burst right through the barriers of even more uncharted territory sooner rather than later.
The Ole Miss Rebels will open their highly anticipated 2024 season on August 31 against Furman inside Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Ole Miss will also open SEC play in VHS, when they host Kentucky on September 28.
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