Ole Miss may have squandered its College Football Playoff opportunity, and opened the door for several others following Saturday’s 24-17 upset loss to Florida. The Rebels, ranked No. 9 in the third playoff top 25, likely fall behind Georgia and Tennessee in Tuesday night’s new rankings. Ole Miss closes its regular season next weekend against Mississippi State and the best it can finish is 9-3 overall. Georgia and Tennessee will be favored against Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt, respectively, and are gunning for their 10th wins to end November.
Texas, one of five SEC teams ranked inside this week’s top 12, hosts Kentucky as a three-touchdown favorite while Alabama, currently ranked No. 7, will play Oklahoma on the road. If the Longhorns and Crimson Tide take care of business, that will leave Ole Miss as the SEC’s fifth highest-rated team unless Texas A&M moves ahead of the Rebels.
Ole Miss beat Georgia earlier this month and leaped two spots in this week’s rankings during its open date, but Saturday’s setback in Gainesville could be season-defining depending on results in front of and behind Lane Kiffin’s squad in the rankings.
Earlier this week, Kiffin said it would benefit his program not to play in the SEC Championship next month since the loser would take a third loss and potentially be on the outside looking in during final playoff discussions.
“We have a lot of value — we’re not gonna speculate on what will happen — but we have a lot of value with the teams that make a championship game,” selection committee chair Warde Manuel said in an ESPN interview. “That says a lot, playing 12 games in the regular season, making your championship game is a really valuable data point, No. 1. No. 2, we’re gonna evaluate the games and how teams play and the performance on the field. That’s what the commissioners asked us to do. They didn’t ask us to stop right before the championship game. They asked us to rank teams through the championship games.”
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Now, the Rebels’ SEC title hopes are over and four teams still in the mix for a spot in Atlanta are Alabama, Texas, Texas A&M and Georgia.
