Monday’s show was the “What We Learned” episode, and the lesson was an ugly one: Ole Miss didn’t just lose to Georgia, it got whipped in all three phases, 42-7, inside its own building. I walked through why the defense was a special kind of bad, why Shekai Mills-Knight should be the starting running back the rest of the way, the tale of two coaches that played out across the SEC on Saturday, and the three-game audit that now matters more than any playoff math. The dream is basically gone. What’s left is pride, a bowl push, and a trip to Norman that decides whether the season is just a failure or an abject one. Hotty Toddy.
Ole Miss didn’t lose to Georgia — it got whipped
Sixteen straight wins at Vaught-Hemingway, gone in two quarters. It was 28-0 at halftime and it could have been worse — Georgia missed a field goal going in. The only Ole Miss points came on a 16-play drive with the game long out of reach. Of the three phases, the one that should bother you most is the same one that’s haunted this team all year: the defense. It started on the very first snap, a 46-yard run, and it never got fixed. Georgia ran for 295 yards, piled up 481 total, and Nate Frazier went for 107 on 16 carries. Gunner Stockton barely had to throw it — nine completions, 186 yards, four touchdowns — because the big plays came whenever Ole Miss crept up to stop the run.
That’s what stings. This is the unit that shut down Missouri’s run game and held Auburn to 2.3 yards a carry, the one we watched trim its missed tackles from 14 down to four. Against the best team on the schedule, it looked like September all over again. The offense wasn’t much better — 66 rushing yards, Trinidad Chambliss sacked five times, a fumble returned for a touchdown, and his touchdown-pass streak snapped on an 18-of-34, 170-yard night where he just wasn’t right. I can live with a rough night against that Georgia front; it’s loaded with four- and five-stars. What I can’t live with is a defense that finally turned the corner and then completely regressed in the biggest game of the year. Ole Miss managed one sack all night, from Will Echoles, against a quarterback who threw it 15 times because he never had to.
Make Shekai Mills-Knight the starter
Here’s the piece that changes everything for me, and it’s the one silver lining worth holding onto: Shekai Mills-Knight should be the starter at running back going forward — not a rotation piece, the starter. Look at the last three weeks. A 35-yard touchdown against Vanderbilt, where Pete Golding called him a “different dimension” back. He led the team in rushing against Auburn with 75 yards and a score. And on Saturday, with nothing — and I mean nothing — working, he was the one Rebel who finished a drive, punching it in from the 8 to cap that 16-play march and finishing over 50 yards on the ground.
Everydayers already know this, but let me say it out loud for everybody else. The best running back on Ole Miss’s roster right now is the one playing like he wants the job. Give it to him. Let him carry it at Oklahoma and make sure that room is set for the rest of the way.
A tale of two coaches, and a 56-yard field goal
Saturday was a tale of two coaches across the SEC, and both of them lost. Lane Kiffin went for everything in Baton Rouge — LSU finished 0-for-4 on fourth down, including one from its own 25 in the fourth quarter that essentially ended the game — and lost to Alabama 31-13, explaining afterward that field goals weren’t going to win it. Pete Golding went the other direction: down seven in the first quarter, a stalled drive, and out came Lucas Carneiro for a 56-yard field goal that missed. From there it was a two-score hole that became a 28-point halftime deficit.
I’m not telling you Kiffin was right — he lost by 18. But there’s a difference between aggressive and desperate, and there’s a difference between patient and passive. A 56-yard try down seven against the number-two team in the country felt passive, and you don’t beat Georgia playing for field goals you probably won’t make. So which hurt more Saturday: the defense that came apart, or the game plan that played it safe?
The three-game audit — and the game that decides the season
So what now for Pete Golding? You play the young guys — not as a white flag, but as a plan. Ole Miss is 6-3, 4-3 in the league, with three games left: at Oklahoma, Wofford at home, and the Egg Bowl on Friday the 27th. Win all three and you’re 9-3 with a real resume and a decent bowl in your future. But the next three weeks are also the cheapest evaluation window this staff gets before the portal opens in about two months. Every snap a young player takes is information. Turn Caleb Cunningham loose — best receiving grade on the team per PFF, still on part-time snaps. Keep learning on Connor Howes at right tackle, Nick Cull at safety, and Landon Barnes on the back end. Find series for Deuce Knight so you know what you have at quarterback behind Chambliss before the renegotiation cycle hits, not after. The hole Golding should worry about most is the one Georgia ran through for 300 yards — the linebackers and the back end — and these three games tell you exactly how much you have to spend to fix it.
The biggest game on the board doesn’t have a big spread — it’s the one in Norman. FanDuel has Ole Miss favored by 2.5 at Oklahoma, the total at 49.5, with the Rebels -132 on the money line. Think about that: a 35-point loss at home, and the market still makes Ole Miss the road favorite — that’s how much of Saturday the books are writing off as Georgia being Georgia. But Ole Miss has to prove it on the road, against a program it’s 3-0 against and beat in Norman a year ago. Win there and the season still has life. Lose, and you’re staring at 8-4 and a season that falls well short of the goal. Watch the first quarter — if the defense gets punched in the mouth early again, we’ll know.
Also on the show
I also hopped on a Locked On College Crossover with Spencer McLaughlin to react to the news that the Playoff and ESPN reached a new five-year deal and that college football is marching toward a 24-team field, with the SEC Championship Game on its way out. The Ole Miss angle: in a 24-team bracket, the Rebels would still be in the field right now — but I don’t love what that reveals. The punishment for losing at Florida and getting beaten at home by Georgia would be a brutal road draw, something like a first-round trip into a checkerboarded Neyland Stadium with Tuscaloosa waiting after. This team can beat anybody on a given day; stringing four or five wins together is another matter, and they haven’t done it all year.
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