Lane Kiffin laments "a lot of missed opportunities" for Ole Miss following gut-wrenching loss to Florida

The Ole Miss Rebels just saw their season's hopes completely destroyed in a gut-wrenching 24-17 loss to Florida on Saturday. Lane Kiffin and company needed to beat Florida and Mississippi State in their final two games to lock in their spot to the College Football Playoff. Now that they have three losses their shot at […]

Travis May — College Football Managing Editor
Add as preferred source on Google

The Ole Miss Rebels just saw their season's hopes completely destroyed in a gut-wrenching 24-17 loss to Florida on Saturday. Lane Kiffin and company needed to beat Florida and Mississippi State in their final two games to lock in their spot to the College Football Playoff. Now that they have three losses their shot at the newly minted 12-Team College Football Playoff is almost assuredly gone.

Following the game, Lane Kiffin summed everything up perfectly, highlighting "a lot of missed opportunities" that set up the shocking loss:

"You know, [it was] a game of a lot of missed opportunities. Go 0-for-3 in the red zone. Get no points out of a missed field goal. Get stopped twice on fourth downs. Lose the turnover margin. In a tough place to play against a team that has played really good when that quarterback plays. Credit to him. He's a really good player that made a lot of plays in the first half…Just a really disappointing outcome…A lot of missed opportunities. Red zone chances. Ball in our hand to score a touchdown and tie the game. It doesn't go your way sometimes."

Ole Miss had zero business losing the game to Florida, but missed opportunities plagued them the entire game. Ole Miss out-gained Florida by 120 yards of offense, but the Rebels went 3-for-14 on 3rd down and 2-for-4 on fourth downs, coming up empty on multiple drives where they should have scored.

While it was certainly frustrating for Ole Miss fans to see the failures on 4th downs and the missed field goals, it was even more maddening watching all the dropped passes by wide receivers and tight ends on the day. Four different players logged horrific drops, with six easy completions being dropped in total for Ole Miss. Kiffin was asked about the dropped passes and he went straight to the beautiful deep pass from Jaxson Dart to Jordan Watkins that should have been the equalizing touchdown score:

"Yeah, very unusual. I think somebody jinxed this week. I think somebody said that Jordan's analytics were 100% catch percentage, and as soon as they said that I said, 'I wish you wouldn't have said that'…That's a great play by Jaxson [Dart]. Great throw. Obviously wish it would have been caught because we might be sitting here with a much different storyline of a great game by Jaxson and how we overcame adversity in a tough place to play."

Jordan Watkins' late drop that would have tied the ball game was certainly disappointing but it wasn't the only dropped touchdown on the day. In fact, Juice Wells had just dropped a touchdown a few drives before too. That drive ended up resulting in no points as JJ Pegues got stuffed on a 4th & 1 conversion attempt.

Caden Prieskorn dropped an easy pass that he could have run in for a potential score. Dae'Quan Wright dropped an easy pass. Juice Wells let a screen pass go right through his hands. It was just a day filled with terrible miscues from receivers and that ultimately killed Ole Miss' chances at a win.

Ole Miss' greatest "sure thing" strength on offense didn't even work either. JJ Pegues, the team's defensive tackle turned short yardage specialist was stuffed on two occasions. Lane Kiffin was asked about his decisions to go for it, and he defended the calls:

"I think that those were probably analytics pretty easy decisions. You know, that instead of getting field goals there when you know it's less than two yards. JJ's percentage coming in had been great in those situations. He made some other short yardage ones today."

JJ Pegues had scored six rushing touchdowns and had been nearly unstoppable in short yardage situations on the year. It made sense to go for it in every instance that Ole Miss chose to against Florida. They just couldn't convert. More missed opportunities.

Lane Kiffin was clearly heartbroken as he lamented the litany of mistakes and missed opportunities that Ole Miss just couldn't cash in on against Florida. Hopefully Ole Miss can regroup and finish strong in the Egg Bowl next week, but even a blowout victory in that game won't sooth the sting of this colossal let down.

We'll be back with more Ole Miss Rebels coverage here at A to Z Sports all year long! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news!

Related Articles