Ole Miss handled The Citadel on Saturday, Nov. 9 in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, winning 49-0. Starters and backups alike had moments to shine in the runaway victory.
Big win but could have been bigger
The Citadel may not be the toughest opponent, but the Rebels still beat the Bulldogs handily. The Ole Miss offense had more than 600 total yards, while the defense gave up only 106 yards — almost half of which came on a 41-yard rush by the Bulldogs in the third quarter.
The Citadel’s 106 yards of total offense is the fewest yards by an Ole Miss opponent since Memphis in 2014, and the Bulldogs’ 23 passing yards are the fewest air yards allowed by the Rebels in the Lane Kiffin era. It is also the fewest since the last time the Rebels played The Citadel in 2005, when the Bulldogs managed only 21 passing yards.
The Rebels gained 35 first downs compared to The Citadel’s five, and Kiffin commented on the discrepancy during his postgame press conference.
“I think that first downs tell a lot about how the game is going and how guys have prepared,” Kiffin said. “Thirty-five (first downs) to five first downs shows a lot of guys were doing things really well, and the guys really answered our challenge.”
While the team played well overall, there were still several missed opportunities during the game — most notably, a dropped pass by wide receiver Cayden Lee, which would have been at least a 44-yard completion. Tight end Caleb Odom also dropped a wide-open touchdown pass at the one-yard line, but he made up for his mistake a play later, when Kiffin called the exact same play to get him open again for the touchdown.
“When you play a sport like this, you got to have a short-term memory loss,” Odom said in his postgame press conference. “Obviously the first one, it was bad. … Coach Kiffin said he doesn’t usually call the same play two times in a row, but he gave it to me.”
In true Kiffin fashion, the Rebels went for it three times on fourth down, but, this game, they were unable to find much success, as they converted only once. The first attempt was especially significant; running back Kewan Lacy tried to rush for the first, but he got completely stuffed and swarmed by The Citadel’s defenders.
If the Rebels want to win out during the regular season and make a playoff push, they will need to limit their mistakes. Playing perfectly is an unreasonable expectation for any team, but Ole Miss’ one loss this season came against Georgia in a game where one inefficient drive swung the game into the Bulldogs’ favor entering the fourth quarter. Championship teams know that even the little mistakes can be the difference between wins and losses.
The whole team played well
Both the offense and defense played well from the get-go. Quarterback Trinidad Chambliss completed his first nine passes for 105 yards. After one incompletion, he then completed another nine consecutive passes for 90 yards. This was a far cry from his performance against South Carolina a week prior, when he managed only 159 passing yards on 12 completions.
“I thought I did pretty good, and it was great to bounce back from last week,” Chambliss said in his postgame press conference. “I wasn’t efficient at all last week, and I knew this week, I wanted to be very technical and make sure I was playing sharp no matter … the opponent.”
Lacy nearly made history on the ground. While his yardage totals are lower than most of the elite running backs in college football this season — Missouri running back Ahmad Hardy leads the SEC with 1,046 rushing yards, while Lacy has 912 — his three rushing touchdowns against The Citadel put him at 16 for the year.
This ties the Ole Miss single-season rushing touchdown record, which is held by former Rebel and current Cleveland Brown Quinshon Judkins.
The offensive line played well, too. Though The Citadel technically recorded three sacks, only one of these came against Chambliss, when he tried to escape the pocket and was brought down for a one-yard loss. The other two came against backup quarterbacks.
In a postgame press conference, Kiffin commented on how much the offensive line has improved, along with how much of an impact Lacy has on team success — even though the running back only had 49 yards this game.
“Our offensive line has done a really good job this year and has really improved since the beginning of the year,” Kiffin said. “(Lacy is) an elite runner and probably would have had a few more (touchdowns) today if we’d left him in.”
This was a good tune-up game
This week, Ole Miss did not fall in the trap of overlooking an opponent. Throughout college football, there are constantly instances of teams struggling against lesser opponents because they were overconfident and tried to look ahead to a future opponent — such as when Ole Miss defeated unranked Washington State by only three points a few weeks ago.
Several younger players and backups were able to get into the game. In an age where NIL and recruiting changes have left many teams with less depth than ever before, solid rotations at each position are vital for making deep playoff runs.
This win helped some players, such as Chambliss, get back on track ahead of the two remaining regular season games and, potentially, the playoffs. Things will get more difficult from here, but this week, Ole Miss got a morale boost ahead of its oncoming SEC contests.
What’s next?
Ole Miss will host Florida at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium at 6 p.m. CT Saturday, Nov. 15. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.
