Ole Miss Coach Lane Kiffin Makes His Pitch to CFP Committee

With Tuesday's CFP rankings just around the corner, Lane Kiffin recently stated why he thinks Ole Miss is deserving of a spot in the field.

Nov 29, 2024; Oxford, Mississippi, USA; Mississippi State Bulldogs head coach Jeff Lebby and Mississippi Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin shake hands after the game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Bush-Imagn Images / Matt Bush-Imagn Images

The Ole Miss Rebels took care of business in a closer-than-expected 26-14 win over Mississippi State on Friday to keep the Egg Bowl trophy in Oxford. Lane Kiffin is 4-for-5 in Egg Bowls, but now the college football postseason is upon us, and Kiffin had some thoughts in his Sunday media appearance.

Is Ole Miss deserving of a spot in the College Football Playoff field after it suffered three regular season losses?

"We're actually a better team this year than a year ago, even though we were 10-2 and now we're 9-3 in the regular season," Kiffin said, "but those are three one-score games, one-play games. One in overtime, and both of the first two losses, they've got to make fourth-and-six conversions. In our other nine games, every game has been double-digit wins or more.

"Really all of them haven't been close at the end for nine games. To me, that describes a really good team that played three super close games and didn't find a way to win them in the end."

The three losses are obviously frustrating, but Kiffin has a point. The Rebels ran a couple of high-caliber SEC teams out of the building this season, the big ones being Arkansas by over 30 points and Georgia by 18.

"You think about the SEC being the best conference, and we're the only team that hasn't lost by more than one score," Kiffin said. "Everybody else has lost by more than one score, including Texas, because it's a really hard league."

Ole Miss' regular season is over, and now it waits for the committee to come to a conclusion on whether it could be the last team in the 12-team field.

The SEC season concludes with Texas and Georgia in Atlanta for the conference title on Saturday. Could that game have massive playoff implications for the Rebels? Time will tell, but we'll have another round of CFP Rankings come Tuesday night.