Well, that was fast.
Ole Miss Head Coach Lane Kiffin sarcastically blasted the College Football Playoff — just one game in — after the Rebels failed to clinch a spot in the newly reformed postseason.
“Really exciting competitive game,” Kiffin wrote on X Friday night after the culmination of the contest between Notre Dame and Indiana. “Great job!!”
The sarcasm could be excused, Kiffin had an unpleasant evening.
From home, the head coach watched No. 7 Notre Dame stomp down No. 10 Indiana in South Bend, presenting the Hoosiers with the distinct honor of being the very first team ever eliminated from the 12-team College Football Playoff.
The final score was 27-17, though the ten-point margin doesn’t nearly do the demolition justice.
Notre Dame’s defense held Indiana to their second-fewest points of the season, and the Hoosiers didn’t score their first touchdown of the game until there was less than 1:30 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Would Kiffin’s Rebels have held a fiercer competitive edge? The world will never know.
Though their head coach certainly thinks so.
Ole Miss was all but knocked out of playoff contention when they dropped their penultimate contest of the season to the Florida Gators.
It was the Rebels’ third loss of the season, all three of which had come in SEC play.
Ole Miss had no chance to vindicate their season’s efforts without a berth to the conference championship game. In the final rankings, the Rebels came in at No. 14.
There would be no playoff bid, despite a slew of impressive wins — including a 28-10 defeat of then-No. 3 Georgia the week before the Florida debacle. Instead, the Rebels were condemned to the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl.
In place of Ole Miss, the committee granted the highly coveted bids to teams like tenth-seeded Indiana — who finished with 11 wins but also played the 32nd hardest schedule in the country, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index.
And the 12-win, third-seeded Boise State, who played only one ranked opponent — then-No. 7 Oregon — up until their Mountain West Championship victory.
The Broncos’ schedule was the 81st most difficult in the nation, per ESPN.
With their win on Friday, the Fighting Irish have booked their date with No. 2 Georgia in the Allstate Sugar Bowl, scheduled for an 8:45 p.m. kickoff on New Year’s Day.
Ole Miss supporters, for their part, are stuck counting down the days until their Rebels take to the gridiron in 2025.