Hobbled Dart leads Kiffin’s Rebels past Bulldogs

OXFORD, Miss. — Lane Kiffin sat at his desk Saturday soaking it all in, one of those nights he was convinced was on the horizon when he took the Ole Miss football head-coaching job on Dec. 9, 2019.

Outside his office window, the party was still raging amid chants of “Hotty Toddy” and the Vaught-Hemingway Stadium goalposts being paraded around the famed Square in downtown Oxford.

“So many people you’re happy for, because we’ve been really close,” Kiffin told ESPN. “This is why we came here.”

Ole Miss had just captured its first top-five win under Kiffin with a 28-10 battering of No. 3 Georgia, and in the process, thrust itself right back into the middle of the College Football Playoff conversation.

“A lot of really good things have happened here, but there’s not been a signature game like this,” Kiffin said. “That’s the team [Georgia] that the playoff goes through, and to win it the way that we did, a three-score game … doesn’t happen with Georgia very often.”

The Rebels (8-2, 4-2) didn’t just beat the Bulldogs. They beat them up on both lines of scrimmage, and after an early score by Georgia following a turnover deep in Ole Miss territory, it was a game the Rebels dominated the rest of the way.

“This all started a year ago,” Kiffin said, referring to when Georgia pummeled Ole Miss 52-17. “We saw where we had to get to, what we had to look like and went out and worked hard in the portal to get the kind of players and depth it takes to win games like this. Georgia’s been the standard in college football. Take away Alabama, and they hadn’t lost a game to anybody since 2020. We had a lot of ground to make up.”

The game couldn’t have started any worse for Ole Miss or quarterback Jaxson Dart. He was intercepted on the Rebels’ first series, leading to a Georgia touchdown and 7-0 lead. Dart suffered an injury to his left ankle and was taken to the locker room.

But indicative of the way the game played out — and this season for the Rebels — freshman quarterback Austin Simmons stepped in for Dart and calmly led Ole Miss on a 75-yard touchdown drive to tie the score. The Bulldogs (7-2, 5-2) only managed a field goal the rest of the way, as quarterback Carson Beck was harassed by an Ole Miss defensive front seven that made life miserable for Georgia’s pass protection.

Dart reentered the game and was limping noticeably after it. He said there was no way he was coming out for good and that Ole Miss’ resilience after a home loss to Kentucky and then the overtime defeat by LSU only fueled the Rebels’ fire.

“It feels great. Everybody counted us out after the LSU game, but we feel like we’re a couple of plays away from being the No. 1 team in the country,” Dart said.

Ole Miss held Georgia to 59 rushing yards and sacked Beck five times. He was under duress the entire game and finished 20 of 31 for 186 yards, no touchdowns and an interception. He also lost a fumble and has committed multiple turnovers in five of his past six games.

“We stopped the run and then we had some fun,” said Ole Miss defensive end Jared Ivey, part of a swarming defense that collected nine tackles for loss and forced four fumbles.

It wasn’t much fun for Kirby Smart and his team, which faces No. 7 Tennessee at home next week. The 10 points tied for the lowest scoring output of Smart’s head-coaching career at Georgia, and the 18-point loss was Georgia’s largest margin of defeat since a 37-10 loss to eventual national champion LSU in the 2019 SEC championship game.

Smart said he told his team during the week that he thought Ole Miss was the most talented team that the Bulldogs have faced this season.

“They really should be unbeaten,” Smart said. “I know people think that’s not true, but they outplayed us tonight, outcoached us and did a great job.”

Kiffin said the playoff and how far up the rankings the No. 16 Rebels could move this week will take care of itself. They were playing for the third straight week without their top receiver Tre Harris III, and with an upcoming bye, should have a chance to get him back in time for the game at Florida on Nov. 23. Ole Miss has now won three straight games, all by double digits, after the LSU loss.

“Our team has been looking at it like a playoff for several weeks, ever since we screwed up the LSU game,” Kiffin said. “Our backs have been against the wall, and sometimes when that happens, you fight a little harder.”

About the only thing that went wrong for Ole Miss on Saturday, other than the early turnover, was the fans storming the field too early. There were still 16 seconds remaining and officials had to clear everybody off the field and push into the back of the end zones just to finish the game. And when those final 16 seconds did tick down, a sea of red poured back onto the field and within minutes ripped down both goalposts.

Kiffin joked with athletic director Keith Carter that he might have to pay two fines, to which Carter shot back, “And that’s OK.”

Either way, the Rebels — after so much hope, so much hype and so much NIL money paid out to players this offseason — are right back where they wanted to be.

“We’re peaking and I think everybody sees that,” Dart said.