{"id":81201,"date":"2025-10-16T09:00:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T13:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=81201"},"modified":"2025-10-15T20:34:05","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T00:34:05","slug":"a-sleepy-ole-miss-team-nearly-sees-disaster-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/10\/16\/a-sleepy-ole-miss-team-nearly-sees-disaster-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sleepy Ole Miss Team Has To Wake Up In a Hurry"},"content":{"rendered":"
This past weekend was a near disaster for Ole Miss. They came into a meeting with Washington State expecting to be able to control the game and take care of business rather quickly. That turned out to be about as far from the truth as you can get. Instead of managing an easy win, a sleepy Ole Miss was pushed to the brink by the Cougars. While they squeaked away with a three-point victory, things have to change in a hurry for the Rebels.<\/div>\n
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With upcoming trips to Athens and Norman, to take on Georgia and Oklahoma, there’s little room for error moving forward. If they plan on being a College Football Playoff team, they have to wake up and fast.<\/div>\n

A One-Off Weekend, Or a Sign of Bigger Problems?<\/h2>\n

What Went Wrong For the Rebels?<\/h3>\n
In short, everything.<\/div>\n
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The offense was largely abysmal and inefficient. Kewan Lacy<\/a> was the one glaring exception. Lacy ran for 142 yards on 24 carries. The offensive line struggled. Heisman hopeful quarterback Trinidad Chambliss<\/a> struggled. Despite putting up a decent 253 yards on 20-29 passing, he simply wasn’t accurate with the ball. He missed too many receivers. And more concerning was his lack of effectiveness on the ground. In his first three starts<\/a>, he showed his ability to escape the pocket. Against the Cougars, he ran 11 times but only picked up 15 yards.<\/div>\n
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On the defensive side, things were a bit better. They played well, but fell apart at key moments. Until the last drive of the game, they had only given up 14 points. That’s certainly respectable. If they can play for a full 60 minutes, instead of about 55 minutes, the defense looks like it’ll be okay moving forward.<\/div>\n
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Then there’s coaching. Lane Kiffin appeared to coach in a bit of a lackadaisical manner. The play calling from offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr wasn’t much better. It was boring and lacked innovation. That has to get better if they want to have success in the upcoming weeks.<\/div>\n
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And the problems don’t stop on the field. Even the fans seemed quiet and disinterested. Regardless of who the opponent is or the time of kickoff, a top-5 team should have some sort of home-field advantage. On Saturday, there was none. This is a rare complaint towards Ole Miss fans, but one that needs to be addressed nonetheless.<\/div>\n
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Photo: credit: Jeff Faughender\/Courier Journal \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

How Do Things Improve For Ole Miss?<\/h3>\n
Another simple answer to this question. Intensity and urgency.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In the three games leading up to the Washington State contest, the Rebels looked intense. They looked like a team that knew they had to play extremely well in order to pull out wins. Against the Cougars, that mindset went out the door. They looked like they expected to win, solely because of recruiting rankings or the AP top-25 ranking beside their name. And it almost cost them. In college football, you can’t afford to take your foot off the gas.<\/div>\n
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With the upcoming schedule, they need to find that intensity once again. But that also has to come from the coaches. Players oftentimes take the mentality of their coaches. If the coaches go through preparation sluggish and lackadaisical, plenty of times the players will look the same. Starting with Kiffin, and including Weis Jr. and defensive coordinator Pete Golding, everyone on the Rebel sideline has to look in the mirror and figure out what went wrong. Does the playbook need to open up more and stop being as conservative? Can adjustments be made to better suit Chambliss’ skill set at the quarterback position, including utilizing his legs more effectively? These are all things that need to be addressed in the lead-up to the matchup against Georgia on Saturday.<\/div>\n

Despite Problems, It’s Worth Trusting the Coaching Staff<\/h3>\n
It’s obviously easy to bash the effort and performance from Ole Miss this past weekend. And that’s all for good reason. However, they did still manage to escape with the win. In years past, that was a game they typically found ways to lose.<\/div>\n
So even though it wasn’t a pretty win, it’s still a win nonetheless. That shows improvement from where things easily could still be for the Ole Miss program. And despite an occasional struggle or embarrassing performance, we’re still witnessing what has largely been the most successful run in Rebel football history. And it has come at the hands of Kiffin and these two coordinators. So while they deserve rightful criticism for last week’s performance, that doesn’t mean it’s time to overreact in a drastic way.<\/div>\n
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It’s time for Rebel fans to trust the coaching staff and believe that they know what they’re doing. That is, until they consistently prove otherwise.<\/div>\n
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Main Photo: Petre Thomas-Imagn Images<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past weekend was a near disaster for Ole Miss. They came into a meeting with Washington State expecting to be able to control the game and take care of business rather quickly. That turned out to be about as far from the truth as you can get. Instead of managing an easy win, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4571,"featured_media":81241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17,35582,3],"tags":[33310,495,4470],"class_list":["post-81201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-ole-miss-rebels","category-sec","tag-charlie-weis-jr","tag-lane-kiffin","tag-pete-golding"],"modified_by":"Kate Pearson Halyburton, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4571"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81201"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81242,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81201\/revisions\/81242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}