OXFORD, Miss. — Lane Kiffin knows it will mean nothing looking back if Ole Miss was better this year if the record doesn’t support that. While it’s probably an explanation more than any excuse, a lot of fans still won’t buy it.

But he did point that out in the SEC Teleconference on Wednesday ahead of facing No. 3 Georgia on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. on ABC or listen on the Ole Miss Radio Network. I’ve heard coaches say that for about 40-50 years and it’s always an “uh-oh” thought.

“When you look at it, we lost two one-play games,” Kiffin said. “Last year, we won all of our one-score games. The majority of our conference wins were one score. We pulled them out. This year, we had two games that we were in control of go the other way. We’re in a better position than a year ago. Every year is independent, every week as you can in college football, let alone every season. There’s not a whole lot you can take from teams a year ago.”

Every bit of what Kiffin said is true. The only problem is fans don’t really accept that very well. Legendary athletic director John Barnhill at Arkansas told Frank Broyles one time, “a team is remembered less for what it accomplished in November than what was expected of it in August.”

The best part of that is Ole Miss can still accomplish what the original goal was bfore the season started. That’s a national championship, by the way. In this day and age of a College Football Playoff, finishing your bowl game before New Year’s means you failed somewhere throughout the season.

Standing in the way, though, is a game against the Bulldogs and Kirby Smart’s team hasn’t lost to anybody but Alabama in the SEC for several years. Now, though, the road to a streak like that is going to be tougher because he doesn’t get a weakened SEC East to play every year. They are still very, very good.

Kiffin has seen from the film just how good the talent is for Georgia. Considering they’ve won two of the last three national titles, it would only be a headline if they were historically bad.

“We actually went into an install cut-up one time” Kiffin said. “It’s interesting because when we look for plays, we look at NFL plays. We went to a defensive cut-up of watching Georgia to an NFL team, I’m not going to say which team. I paused the film. Georgia actually, their 11 looked better than the starting 11 on this NFL team.”

There were no headlines for the other team from either Kiffin or Smart in the teleconference. You just don’t see that very often these days.

Bring the energy Saturday ⚡️#ComeToTheSip pic.twitter.com/xqjAtqhul3

— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) November 6, 2024

What Kiffin will need is a crowd of Rebel fans that makes the stadium bulge and the ground shake from the noise. Ole Miss HAS to win in this one to keep their hopes alive to climb from their No. 16 ranking in the first CFP poll. Last year at Georgia, it was like a championship game and apparently it made a difference.

“We went into Georgia, the place was electric in warmups 30 minutes before kickoff,” Kiffin said. “They put us at night there and they have us earlier this year. It would be awesome for our fans to have the same type of energy and impact because that was definitely an impact a year ago.”

So, the Rebels fan base knows their role now. Yes, they can play a big part in this game. Now they just have to do their part. The rest will be up to the team.