Ole Miss surprised at dwelling by Kentucky: How did Wildcats upend Rebels’ Playoff hopes? | USAEMALL.com

Kentucky upset No. 6 Ole Miss 20-17 on Saturday after the Rebels missed a 48-yard field goal with 48 seconds left, dealing a blow to the College Football Playoff hopes of an Ole Miss team with some of the highest expectations in program history.

The Wildcats (3-2, 1-2 SEC) went for it on fourth-and-7 at their own 20-yard line with 3:51 remaining, and Brock Vandagriff found Barion Brown for a 63-yard gain into the red zone. Kentucky scored two plays later when a Gavin Wimsatt fumble ended up in the hands of tight end Josh Kattus, who crossed the goal line to take the lead by three with 2:25 to play.

Ole Miss (4-1, 0-1 SEC) subsequently drove into Kentucky territory thanks to a 42-yard Jaxson Dart fourth-down completion to Caden Prieskorn, but it failed to get another first down and settled for a long field goal attempt that missed.

It was Kentucky’s first road win against an SEC team ranked in the AP top 10 since upsetting No. 1 Ole Miss in 1964 and its first win in Oxford since 1978.

A big step backward for Ole Miss’ aspirations of being elite

Maybe this is another example of the SEC being a league where nobody can take the week off. And Kentucky has certainly resurrected itself after getting blown out by South Carolina on Sept. 7, taking Georgia to the brink and now upsetting Ole Miss. It’s a huge win for Mark Stoops, maybe the biggest of his long tenure, and a total vibe shift from the early debacle against the Gamecocks. There’s renewed hope for the team, between a stifling defense and an offense that’s getting better.

But the bigger picture is about Ole Miss, which entered the game with the seventh-best odds to make the College Football Playoff, according to The Athletic’s model, at 79 percent. Those Playoff expectations have taken a big hit, along with its general aspirations to be an elite program. When Georgia found itself in a game at Kentucky, it rallied to pull it out. Even Missouri has had two close calls at home and survived. Ole Miss was supposed to be past this — the remaining question being if it can close the deal against the top-tier teams. This was a big step backward for the Rebels as a program.

Of course, it’s not over, and it really isn’t for any SEC team in the expanded Playoff era — Ole Miss’ CFP chances fell from 79 percent to a still-plausible 48 percent in our model. But Ole Miss still has to go to LSU and hosts Georgia, and after this games against South Carolina (in Columbia next week) and at home against Oklahoma are far from a given. — Seth Emerson

How did Kentucky pull off this upset?

It’s time to take the Wildcats’ defense seriously. It collapsed a bit under the weight of a hapless offense in a 31-6 home loss to South Carolina that seemed to portend rough seas ahead for Stoops’ team. A 13-12 home loss to Georgia was a surprising near-upset, and now the Wildcats have stifled Lane Kiffin’s near-point-a-minute offense. Five sacks, including two from Octavious Oxendine and an enormous one late from J.J. Weaver, led to 1-for-10 Ole Miss futility on third down.

Deone Walker and the UK defensive front were dominant, holding the Rebels to 92 rushing yards. And the Kentucky offense chipped in with an efficient Vandagriff game (18 for 28, 243 yards, one touchdown), helping the Wildcats nearly double the Rebels in possession time. That stat matters in a matchup like this. — Joe Rexrode

Ole Miss’ explosiveness couldn’t match Kentucky’s physicality

Ole Miss lost this game up front, raising questions about how it will stand up physically to top teams in the SEC and beyond — if it can actually recover to make the Playoff. Kentucky dominated the line of scrimmage despite averaging only 2.0 yards per carry. The Wildcats were able to dictate pace offensively and keep the Rebels’ explosive offense on the sideline. Kentucky held the ball for 39 minutes and 48 seconds, and Ole Miss converted just one third down. Those are killer numbers against a high-tempo offense that had led the FBS in total yards, yards per play, passing offense and scoring, putting up 220 points in its first four games.

Still, Ole Miss had a chance to at least send the game into overtime when Dart completed a 42-yard pass to Prieskorn on fourth-and-11 — its second big fourth-down conversion of the game after Dart found Tre Harris for a 48-yard touchdown late in the third quarter. But once again, Kentucky’s advantage at the line of scrimmage came up big, as a sack helped limit Ole Miss to the long field goal attempt it missed, severely damaging the high hopes of an Ole Miss team that entered 2024 with its highest preseason ranking since 1970. — Scott Dochterman

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(Photo: Petre Thomas / Imagn Images)