OXFORD — Lane Kiffin clearly made his own assessment after Ole Miss Football’s Texas Bowl loss to Houston.
An 8-5 record and a four-game losing streak to end the season weren’t enough, he said.
The high-flying vibes of a 7-0 Ole Miss start that had Rebels fans dreaming of the possibilities couldn’t seem more disparate from how things ended. However, this good start did happen, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the moment.
Considering the season as a whole, here’s how we rated Ole Miss in 3rd grade under Kiffin:
Offense
On a microscopic level, Ole Miss’ offense was good but not great. He averaged 6.4 yards per game, which ranks him 27th in college football with only the national championship game remaining. That mark is also sixth in the SEC, and a very slight improvement over what the Rebels did last season.
Kiffin’s offense scored 33.5 points per game, roughly the same as last season. They did it differently this time, harboring the nation’s third most prolific running attack rather than relying on the passing game.
A major point against the 2022 offense is that it has doubled its turnover rate from a year ago, averaging 1.6 gifts per game instead of its season-high 0.8. last. It’s by no means a disastrous result for the Rebels, but it’s also likely one of the main reasons Ole Miss is 8-5 instead of 10-3. Another is a lower than average percentage of red zone. Ole Miss ranked 99th nationally, scoring just under 80% of her moves in the red zone. It’s extremely difficult to be one of the top 15 college football teams while doing this.
Looking ahead, the Rebels will benefit from continuity on the offensive side of the ball with the return of quarterback Jaxson Dart and running back Quinshon Judkins. Can they make the leap from good to great?
Rating 2022: B-
Defense
Much like the offense, many of Ole Miss’s overall defensive stats are going to be polluted by the fact that Ole Miss has played more offensive snaps than all but four teams in the country. The faster the Ole Miss offense goes – and it goes quickly – the more the opponent will have opportunities to accumulate yards and points.
So it’s best to boil it down to the smallest possible unit – yards against per play – for our baseline. The Rebels have allowed 5.3 yards per play this season, which is good for sixth in the SEC and a slight improvement over what they did last season.
Just like the offense, Ole Miss’ defense was also quite poor in the red zone. His opposition have managed runs on 85% of their trips in the red zone, which is tied for 25th nationally.
Grade 2022: C+
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Special teams
It may be an overlooked issue for Ole Miss this season. According to the Football Outsiders Special Teams Fremeau Efficiency Index, the Rebels had the third-worst special teams unit in the SEC and the 33rd-worst unit in the nation as a whole.
Jonathan Cruz was pretty solid for Ole Miss as a place-kicker, but the rematch for the Rebels was a problem, and the punting wasn’t spectacular. The Rebels had a lower average starting position in every game of the four-game losing streak Ole Miss endured to close the season. The Egg Bowl, in particular, showcased the value of special teams. Ole Miss generated three takeaways to one for Mississippi State, and the Bulldogs still had a much better average starting field position thanks to the performance of their special teams.
If Ole Miss is looking for places in the margins to improve in 2023, that seems like a good place to start.
Rating 2022: D
framing
There is good and bad to analyze. It’s certainly not easy to fold 17 transfer acquisitions into a program over the course of a few months and start at 7-0. Likewise, you’d expect a team with this kind of influx of new faces to improve as the season progresses, and that certainly hasn’t happened.
Kiffin deserves credit for acknowledging what he had in Quinshon Judkins and Zach Evans on offense, turning what was a first pass since joining into the best rushing offense in Power Five football. On the negative side of things, it’s hard not to feel like the off-field situation that connects him to the Auburn position could have been handled better.
Grade 2022: C-
Globally
As noted, Kiffin himself said that 8-5 result was not enough. The Rebels have lost five of their last six games and have been completely ejected in three of those games. Yet when we apply recent historical context, it’s hard to categorize the season as an outright failure. Over the 22 seasons from 2000 to 2021, OIe Miss has won eight or more games on seven occasions.
Vegas had the Rebels’ preseason win total at 7.5. So, in the most objective sense, the Rebels were on the right side of expectations — but fair.
Rating: C
David Eckert covers Ole Miss for the Clarion Ledger. Email him at deckert@gannett.com or hit him up on Twitter @davideckert98.