This Saturday’s Georgia-Ole Miss game will be the most important college game played on Mississippi soil since, well, at least since 2014 when Mississippi State and Ole Miss were ranked as highly as No. 1 and No. 3.
Alabama was ranked No. 3 and Ole Miss No. 11 on Oct. 4, 2014, when the Rebels won 23-17 at Oxford. Seven days later, Auburn was ranked No. 2 and State No. 3 when the two teams played on at Starkville. State won 38-23 to move to No. 1. Clearly, those games were huge.
This one Saturday (2:30 p.m. at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium) is vitally important — perhaps even more important — for different reasons. A college football playoff berth is likely at stake. In the first 12-team college football rankings ever this week, 7-1 Georgia was ranked No. 3 and Ole Miss was ranked No. 16. But here’s the deal: Should Ole Miss, a 2.5-point underdog, defeat Georgia, the Rebels surely would zoom into the top 12 next week.
On the other hand, an Ole Miss defeat Saturday would be the Rebels’ third. In this new 12-team playoff scenario, three strikes and you’re out. With a loss, Georgia would remain in the playoff picture, but the Bulldogs would lose any chance for a first-round bye.
One indication of this game’s importance: All seats have long since been sold, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get in. Indeed, you can get two club level seats in the south end zone on Seat Geek for $2,304 each. There are cheaper seats elsewhere but none less than $219 apiece. It’s a scalper’s delight.
It is also an incredibly intriguing matchup: Offensive whiz Lane Kiffin vs. defensive mastermind Kirby Smart. Ole Miss quarterback Jaxson Dart vs. Georgia quarterback Carson Beck. Ole Miss, 12-1 in its last 13 home games, faces Georgia, which has won 53 of its last 56 regular season games overall and 23 of its last 24 on the road. Incredibly, those aren’t misprints.
The two head coaches, formerly assistants together under Nick Saban at Alabama, have said nothing to reduce the magnitude of the game. Not that they could.
Said Kiffin: “Anybody who’s gonna win (the national championship) is going to have to go through Georgia. They’re the premier program in college football.”
Meanwhile, Smart talks about the Rebels as if they are the Kansas City Chiefs.
“They’re one of the top passing teams, in my mind, in the country … They’ve done it with tight ends. They’ve done it with backs. They’ve done it with wideouts. It doesn’t matter who it is with Lane. He’s going to plug somebody in there. They’re going to figure out where your weaknesses are, find matchups, and look for coverages and find ways to beat those coverages. They’ve got a guy (Dart) that can do it. This guy’s playing uncanny football when you talk about the accuracy, the completion percentage, the yards he’s throwing it for. He’s not throwing dink and dunk passes now. This guy’s throwing the ball vertical, down the field, shots. Then, when you do that, let’s say you cover all that, and you do that, he can take off and run. You watch a quarterback run reel on this guy, and you don’t have enough people in the box. So, the reason they’re successful is because of the scheme and the players that are in the scheme.”
Dart currently plays the game at an elite level rarely seen in college football. He threw for 515 yards and six touchdowns last week at Arkansas. His numbers — 21 passing touchdowns vs. just three interceptions — are far better than Beck’s (17 TDs, 11 interceptions).
But 360 days ago, Beck threw for 306 yards and two touchdowns in Georgia’s 52-17 trouncing of Ole Miss at Athens. Meanwhile, Dart threw 112 yards and not a single score before being knocked out of the game late in the third quarter. Georgia scored touchdowns on its first four possessions. It was utter dominance.
Can Ole Miss return the favor and slay the SEC’s dragon this time around?
Absolutely, the Rebels can. At their best, the Rebs can play with Georgia, even beat Georgia. In my opinion, the game will come down to which team can a) run the ball successfully and b) protect its quarterback.
Ole Miss doesn’t have to run for 200 yards or anything like that. But the Rebels do have to run it well enough that Georgia can’t, as announcers say, pin their ears back and take dead aim at Dart.
Ole Miss has protected Dart well in every game but two. Kentucky sacked Dart four times. LSU sacked him six times. Not coincidentally, those are the only two games Ole Miss lost. Here’s why: Ole Miss ran the ball only 29 times for 92 yards against Kentucky. The Rebels ran for 180 yards against LSU but inexplicably went away from the run in the second half when the Tigers sacked Dart four times.
Anybody who has watched Georgia under Smart knows you can’t be one-dimensional against the Bulldogs. You have to slow down that pass rush and you do that best by running the football. Example: Texas, ranked No. 1 at the time, ran the ball for only 29 yards and a yard per carry against Georgia. As a result, the Bulldogs sacked Texas quarterbacks six times in a 30-15 victory at Austin.
Yes, Ole Miss can win. The Rebels could do what the Longhorns couldn’t. But Ole Miss must run the ball with some success, and, against Georgia, that’s never easy. The wild card could be Dart’s own running, but that comes with the risk of injury. Against Georgia, we’ve already seen how that works out.
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