Cinderella or contender? Definitely the latter as of right now...
Jared Redding
Spring football is in full swing across college football— and all the talking points that come with it. There have been coaching changes, roster moves and other shenanigans over the course of the last couple months.
Through all the offseason talk, it's been a near unanimous take that Ole Miss will be a College Football Playoff team next season most likely. Some have even gone as far as to call them potential national title contenders next season.
However, there was one particular take that caught our eye recently.
A recent national desk piece was written in the spirit of March Madness, talking about teams capable of making a "Cinderella" run to the College Football Playoff next season. Now read the previous sentence again to yourself... keep in mind the word *to* the CFP, not *in* the CFP.
For some context, "Cinderella" has been a term used in college sports (mainly basketball) to describe a team that far exceeds expectations toward a big accomplishment, mainly in terms of a championship. In terms of an Ole Miss example, the 2022 national championship baseball team would very much qualify as a Cinderella story, as one of the last teams to be selected in the tournament.
Anyways, Ole Miss was one of those teams mentioned in that Cinderella piece, along with Penn State, Miami, Texas A&M, NC State, Virginia Tech, Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma State, Kansas, USF and Memphis.
So let's get this straight... The Rebels have won 29 games over the last three seasons, appeared in the CFP's top-10 in all three previous seasons at least once, appeared in a New Year's Six Bowl two of the last three seasons, are coming off an 11-win season that ended in a New Year's Six victory over Penn State, boast the No. 1 transfer portal class going into the spring, boast a dark-horse Heisman contender at quarterback, boast future NFL pass catchers, boast a defense infused with the transfer stars and highly touted high school stars and are widely considered to have the best collection of talent that the school has ever seen...
... but were considered to be a "Cinderella" team to MAKE the College Football Playoff in 2024? A playoff that will now feature 12 teams? Really?
Sorry. Respectfully, we're going to have to disagree on this one.
While things can most certainly change over the next couple months and in the season to come, Ole Miss is a contender, as it currently stands right now.
In almost every way-too-early ranking list that's been released since the end of the 2023 season, Ole Miss has either been anywhere between No. 5 and No. 7. Regardless, that's halfway through the teams that would be in the CFP field if that's what it ended up looking like in the postseason. Remember, there's 12 teams that will have an opportunity to win a national championship soon. Sure, things can go drastically wrong during the season and expectations can fall short, but we're talking about how it stands right now.
But maybe this referred to teams that aren't "blue blood" programs that could make the playoff. Okay, Ole Miss may not have the long-term perennial clout that of Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan and so-on. But over the last decade, Ole Miss is one of just 12 teams with four or more New Year's Six Bowl appearances, and fewer have multiple New Year's Six victories. Ole Miss has two of them over the last decade, while as mentioned before, making two of those games within the last three years. As we've already established, 29 wins in three seasons for the Rebels. The only two SEC teams to have more during that time are Alabama and Georgia.
The 2021 Sugar Bowl team would've likely been a CFP team had it not been for an injury-riddled and poor showing at Auburn. The 2022 team was a collapse that happened for a couple reasons, but the Rebels were 10 yards away from beating Alabama and being 9-1 late in the year and having every reason to finish strong in the games that followed. This past season was an 11-win team with losses to Alabama and Georgia, the latter of which being a reason for Ole Miss to go all-in next season.
Long ramble short, the past couple of seasons was not the result of a fluke. This heavily-anticipated 2024 season was years in the making, and it appears as of right now that Ole Miss will be a contender more often than not so long as the current regime is here. But, that's why we play the games first.
Inside the Rebels will continue to provide wall-to-wall football coverage all throughout the offseason, the spring and all the way up to the 2024 season. Over the coming weeks, Inside the Rebels will be on site on spring practices to provide updates, notes, facts observationsand more.
