As quickly as it came, the 2025 college football regular season has come to a close, and before one of the final playoff rankings are released tomorrow, we wanted to take a look at the teams that are, or are perceived to be, on the bubble of making the second 12-team college football playoffs. We're going to look at Notre Dame, Alabama, Oklahoma, Miami, BYU and Ole Miss and talk through what's working in their favor and what's working against their final push to the playoffs. Let's first take a look at the Ole Miss Rebels who are sitting at 11-1 on the season, ranked 7th by the playoff committee but have undergone some significant attrition in the last 72 hours.
What's Working In Their Favor?
Ole Miss is sitting at 11-1 this season which is a significant mark. This is the first time in program history the Rebels reached the 11-win mark. Despite having less top-end, NFL-caliber talent compared to last year's squad, Ole Miss made it through the regular season one game shy of being unscathed. Their only loss of the year came in a one possession game to Georgia on the road. Outside of that, they beat LSU at home and Oklahoma on the road. The Rebels were also able to overcome and injury to starting quarterback Austin Simmons paving the way for Trinidad Chambliss to burst onto the scene.
Ole Miss currently ranks 12th on the ESPN FPI, 16th on the FEI and 10th in the Sagarin. They also have the 7th best strength of record in the country according to ESPN but the 40th ranked strength of schedule. Out of their 11 wins, six of them came by double digits and finished the season 7-1 in conference tied with Texas A&M, Alabama and Georgia. They have one of the best running backs in the country in Kewan Lacy and a capable defense that held six of their 12 regular season opponents to less than 20 points.
What's Working Against Them?
The issue down in Oxford is two fold. First, their schedule ended up not being as quality as we thought it would have preseason. LSU, Arkansas, South Carolina and Florida all under performed this season and ended the season unranked. Out of their seven conference wins, five of those teams have losing records (Mississippi State, Florida, South Carolina, Arkansas and Kentucky). Their win on the road against Oklahoma in Norman was impressive, but due to other team's on their schedule not panning out, their second best victory, arguably, is home against Tulane who they soundly beat 45-10.
Second, the departure of head coach Lane Kiffin throws a wrench into this whole thing. We've seen the committee before drop teams in the rankings in the waning moments due to a dramatic personnel change (Florida State 2023). Kiffin is also not the only coach departing for Baton Rouge. Offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. and five other assistant coaches will also be joining Kiffin's staff for the Tigers according to Nola.com according to copies of their term sheets obtained by The Advocate. Ole Miss will also be without co-offensive coordinator Joe Cox, wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator George McDonald, inside wide receivers coach and analyst Sawyer Jordan and strength and conditioning coach Nick Savage.
My Thoughts: Flat out, this is a tough decision. This program handled business and has, arguably, the most quality loss amongst team's in playoff contention. That being said, I don't think they can remain the No. 7 team in the country with that level of attrition. That would be like Notre Dame heading into the playoffs without Marcus Freeman, Mike Denbrock, Mike Brown and Loren Landow. Personally, I think Ole Miss should still make the playoffs, but due to the amount and severity of the attrition, they should be knocked down to the 10th spot with their fate hanging in the balance of the SEC Championship game and the Big 12 Championship game. They've done enough to put themselves into consideration, but the team that won 11 regular season games will likely look drastically different without the majority of their offensive coaching staff.
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