It is remarkable to see what is happening to current and former USC football head coaches. Steve Sarkisian has Texas atop the college football world. He has unlocked the potential and resources of Texas, turning the Longhorns into winners. If you were a college football analyst three years ago, would you have predicted that Sark would succeed and that Lincoln Riley and Lane Kiffin would fail? Probably not. You might have gotten two of the three predictions right, at least one, but all three? Not very likely. It is fascinating to watch both Lane Kiffin and Lincoln Riley struggle at the same time. We know about USC’s failures this year, but Lane Kiffin is now in his own pit of misery in Mississippi. The Rebels led LSU for much of Saturday’s game but lost it at the end. Ole Miss now has two losses this season and is on the ropes in terms of making the College Football Playoff and achieving its own foremost team goals. The difference between USC and Ole Miss is that Ole Miss was projected to be a top-10 team before the season began. Ole Miss wasn’t merely hoping for a playoff-caliber season; a playoff berth in a 12-team field was expected down in Oxford. As much as this 2024 football season meant to Lincoln Riley, USC, and the Trojan fan base, it meant even more to Ole Miss, because this was supposed to be the moment. Now Ole Miss’s season lies in tatters. The Rebels must win out to save their season; they are not getting into the playoff at 9-3 with their soft nonconference schedule. Let’s talk more about Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss, and why this season is even more of a failure than USC’s stumbles under Lincoln Riley:
QUARTERBACK
Whereas Lincoln Riley was going into the first full season for Miller Moss as a college quarterback, Lane Kiffin had ample experience with Jaxson Dart as his Ole Miss starting signal-caller. Dart fully knew the offense and Kiffin’s system. This was supposed to be a year in which Dart and Ole Miss really took off, but it hasn’t happened. The losses to Kentucky and Ole Miss involved subpar performances by the Ole Miss offense. Lincoln Riley hasn’t done well this year, but one could make the case that Kiffin has done even worse, given that his quarterback had a lot more reps and seasoning in previous years.
KENTUCKY
Ole Miss lost at home to Kentucky. This is the same Kentucky team which got blown out at home by South Carolina and just lost at home to Vanderbilt. That’s a horrendous loss. USC’s worst home loss was to unbeaten Penn State. The Trojans‘ other two losses were on the road, at least.
LSU
Ole Miss lost to LSU. Lincoln Riley and USC beat LSU. That’s another clear-cut way to make the argument that Ole Miss — despite having only two losses instead of USC’s three — has had the more disappointing season to this point in time.
SEC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
This was a huge year at Ole Miss football for a lot of reasons. One central reason: The Rebels had never made the SEC Championship Game since the event’s birth in 1992. Ole Miss was 0 for 32 in reaching the SEC title game. Ole Miss is the only school from the original SEC West Division (LSU, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi State, and Auburn being the other teams) in 1992 to never make the SEC title game. Vanderbilt and Kentucky are the only two teams from the original SEC East to never make the conference title game. The enormity of this missed opportunity for Ole Miss cannot be emphasized enough. It’s more of a miss than what USC endured this year.
SEC WEAKNESS
If you’re an Ole Miss fan, you’re sick right now. You’re sick because Alabama is weak. Georgia is weak. Tennessee is weak. Texas is elite, but that second spot was there for the taking, and Ole Miss could not take advantage.
BIG TEN STRENGTH
To be very clear here, we’re not saying Lincoln Riley and USC haven’t failed in a very big way this year. They certainly have. However, we’re making the point that Ole Miss has failed even more than USC has. On that count, we are confident in our assertion. Compare the SEC’s weakness at the top with the Big Ten’s strength at the top. Oregon and Ohio State played a big-boy game on Saturday. Penn State is unbeaten. USC still would have faced an uphill battle in the Big Ten even if it had taken care of Minnesota and Michigan. Ole Miss should have beaten Kentucky and LSU and would have been sitting very pretty in the SEC had it not stumbled.
It’s bad at USC. It’s worse at Ole Miss, even though the Rebels have only two losses compared to USC’s three. These opportunities don’t come around the bend as often for Ole Miss as they do for USC.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: While Lincoln Riley struggles, former USC coach Lane Kiffin also falls short
