Lane Kiffin sat in the media room of the visiting Georgia team last season, suffering a devastating loss to the Bulldogs, and made it clear that if Ole Miss was going to compete with a team like the one they just faced, he would had to rebuild. roster similar to Kirby Smart’s on the field.

It was more of a realization moment for the Ole Miss head coach, who was still trying to conform to the idea that what he had done before that game wouldn’t work. The Rebels had to look like an SEC powerhouse and not just rely on the rushing attack to get them over the hump.

In any case, Lane Kiffin sat in front of those reporters in Athens and made it clear that the offseason would be spent building a roster as big as a team like Georgia. To some fans it felt like an excuse, but to the people in Oxford who deal with recruitment and NIL, it was a warning that if they were to succeed, it was time to put everything on the table.

Since that transfer portal period began last year, the only goal has been to compete for an SEC title and make the college football playoffs. Long gone are the days when we were okay with finishing in fourth place or nearly reaching the postseason. And Lane Kiffin knew that with the college football playoffs expanding to twelve teams, this was the chance to go all in for a shot at the title.

A year later there were speed bumps, but the plan worked

A full year after that 52-17 loss in Athens, I wouldn’t say everything has gone to plan for the Rebels, but they have built a roster from the transfer portal and NIL that can compete with Georgia, and this is what the field looks like .

“I said, ‘We’re going to do everything we can to change the way we look. As a team, but especially defensively.’ We may not be as good, but we will look much better in our uniforms,” Lane Kiffin discussed last year. “A big part of that was bringing in players who are already key players in the SEC, who we’ve seen play against these teams.”

But the idea that spending over $10 million on a roster can buy you a season without many setbacks along the way is nonsense. When Kentucky strolled into Oxford in September and upset the Rebels, people scratched their heads and wondered what they had just seen.

BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA – OCTOBER 12: Head Coach Brian Kelly of the LSU Tigers talks with Head Coach Lane Kiffin of the Ole Miss Rebels before the game against the Ole Miss Rebels at Tiger Stadium on October 12, 2024 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Gus Stark/LSU/University Images via Getty Images}

A trip to Baton Rouge last month posed another hurdle, losing to LSU in overtime after the offense went cold, forcing Ole Miss to make four field goals after a first-half outburst that left people lining the sideline the rebels thought they would leave with a victory. But once again the Rebels were punched in the mouth, leaving Louisiana with a humiliating loss that could put them out of the playoffs.

Everything Lane Kiffin and his staff had done in the offseason to build a roster capable of playing for a national championship began to weigh heavily on their minds.

A win over Arkansas last weekend proved this team was up to the challenge, but now the season comes down to a game against Georgia. A story that started in the visitors’ locker room last season has now arrived, and Lane Kiffin is preparing for the biggest game of his Ole Miss tenure.

The stage is set for Ole Miss to prove the doubters wrong

If there was ever a game where Jaxson Dart and this Rebel offense came out with a sniper mentality, this is it. There is a feeling, deep inside most of you outside Oxford, that Lane Kiffin has scored enough chances to win the ‘Big Game’ that your heart is telling you this is just another example of buying in too early.

I get it. There’s a stigma surrounding Kiffin, and these games against teams you think have a good chance of beating but ultimately get let down. Do you think that won’t eat him up at night? As much as he likes to poke the bear, Kiffin has been much more subdued this season. Whether that’s because he’s nervous about the end result, because he knows everything that happened in this 2024 season, or because he’s continued to mature on his path to becoming a more calming figure in the public eye.

He and his players don’t need to be told how big this game is. They know, I promise. For everything that has happened in the past year. Despite all the preparation for this season and the expectations placed on this team, only for them to fall short in the two previous defeats, there is still a sense of braggadocio in that football building in Oxford.

AUSTIN, TEXAS – OCTOBER 19: Georgia Bulldogs Head Coach Kirby Smart leads his team onto the field during a game between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Texas Longhorns at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on October 19, 2024 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Steve Limentani/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

Georgia is currently on a streak that is certainly mind-boggling for the rest of college football. Kirby Smart was 48-0 against teams not named Alabama over the last four years. According to Vegas, the expectation is that Georgia will be 49-0 after today’s game. And while that may be the case, you can’t tell me this is the same type of Ole Miss team we all witnessed losing in Athens last season.

So that leaves us with two scenarios. Georgia walks into Oxford and destroys any hope of making the playoffs from the hearts of Ole Miss fans and the football program.

The other scenario is that Lane Kiffin and the Rebels finally get over the hump and win a game that will put them on a collision course with the college football playoffs and force the doubters to remain silent into the night.

For all the fun Kiffin has on social media, snapping a few shots at current events in the sport, there’s nothing he’d rather do than finally muzzle the people who doubted him during his career in monumental games.

This afternoon his team will have the opportunity to speak on the field on behalf of their head coach. .