No. 6 Ole Miss saw its season come to an end in a heart-breaking loss on the final game of the Fiesta Bowl against No. 10 Miami.
The Rebels won’t be playing for its first national championship in almost 60 years. Instead, they’ll return to Oxford to full kickstart the offseason that’s already in motion.
Here’s what Ole Miss coach Pete Golding said after Thursday night’s College Football Playoff semifinal loss to Miami, 31-27.
Opening statement…
Obviously disappointed for the outcome. Had a chance in the fourth and go up late. Them playing real well on defense all night. But to be up in the fourth and have an opportunity to close it out on that stage, it’s something we’ll all look back on and get better from. I can’t tell you how proud I am of this group. They never panicked. They never flinched. They’re led by special young men. Two of them [TJ Dottery and Trinidad Chambliss] are sitting up here. I can remember looking at them at halftime and just looking in their eyes and they didn’t panic. We had been here before. We didn’t make enough plays when we needed to from a coach’s standpoint. We’ve got to find a way to put them in better position late in the game and close it out.
But super proud of this group. This is a group that created this legacy for this team and an expectation for this program. I told them in the locker room that we’re pissed off in a semifinal game because we feel like we should have won the game because we didn’t play our best and we didn’t coach our best. Really proud of their effort and proud of the year they had.
On Miami’s offensive success…
The effort piece of it has never been an issue all year. We knew they were going to come in and try to establish the run. [Malachi] Toney, on the perimeter, was a deep threat that we wanted to be able to try to contain. Some of that was by design, where we were at on the field, and kind of bend but don’t break, and kind of tighten it up towards the end. But I thought they were spotting really well at halftime. It was a good third quarter.
In those games on third downs, critical third downs, you got to find a way to get off the field and we didn’t. But really proud of their effort. We could have done some better things from a coaching staff as well. It’s on all of us.
On Miami’s third down conversions…
We were double-teaming some and had some good stops. And then the scrambles were an issue. Then we spy. And obviously, when you spy, we had some one-on-ones. Had a couple of busts. And then some of the late ones were some third-and-shorts. You got to do a better job on first and second down to give us some third-and-longs. But it was a lot of different things.
On Miami’s defensive front…
They’re very talented. The front six is really explosive. Not only can they get off the rock and are elite pass rushers, but they’re heavy-handed in the run game. They do a really good job coaching them as well.
We knew it was going to be hard. I mean, guys, it’s the semifinals. It’s supposed to be hard. In these games, you got to be at your best. You got to play at your best. You got to coach at your best. If you don’t, you don’t deserve to win. It’s the semifinals to go to the national championship game.
I thought we had our opportunity by not playing our best game. That’s what we said at halftime. ‘We haven’t played our best up till this point. We’ve been here before. Let’s go out here and let’s spot the ball and let’s find a way to make it a one-possession in the fourth quarter and find a way to win the game.’
Our kids came back and did that and went up. Hats off to them. We just got to find a way to close it. Got to do a better job coaching.
On Ole Miss RB Kewan Lacy…
I think we have a lot of [players banged up]. It’s this part of the season and getting banged up and knicks and things like that. But he had a hamstring that they were going back and forth with for a while. These kids, there’s nobody in that locker room that’s not going to fight through it. There’s a difference between hurting and being injured. A lot of them are hurting, and a lot of them went out of the game, but they found their way back in the game. That’s what you have to do this time of year. We said it from the very beginning — other guys are going to have opportunities and big moments and big games. You’ve got to prepare and you got to be ready for that. And some guys stepped up and did a great job. And others we’re going to watch the tape and we’re going to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got some development to do.’
On Miami’s offensive line…
We knew coming in it was going to be challenging up front. Some of those, you’ve got to decide how you’re going to attack them. And are you going to go all out and create some isolations outside that can create some explosives?
I think, looking back at it, that’s not what lost us the game. I think the two explosive plays lost us the game. So, we can talk about the push and all that. Does it affect the game? Yeah. But the two explosive plays: the scramble for the touchdown and then a screen that’s thrown behind the line for a 40-yard touchdown. We knew they were a good football team. They’re very big up front. They’re well-coached up front. They’ve got a big back, and we knew we were going to have a little bit of trouble with that. We were going to have to take our chances at times to try to create some negative yardage plays to get off the field. Versus teams like that, that are going to commit to that, you have to take the football away some. We had a big pick down there. They missed a field goal, certain things like that. That’s part of those games.
But, yeah, we’re going to watch the tape and we’re going to have to go back. And we got to get better at striking blocks and getting off blocks and fitting runs and leveraging the ball. There’s a lot of things within the game that we’ve got to improve in the offseason, for sure.
On Ole Miss QB Trinidad Chambliss…
I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for him since he got here, because he’s a D-II boy. I said from the very beginning, for a guy like that to come with one year into the SEC with an offense that was already in place, with a guy that had already signed to be the franchise guy, it just showed his confidence in himself.
I said a lot of this to a lot of different people: When he first got here, you didn’t even hear him. You just saw him. You saw him with his head down, working his ass off. Then you start seeing people start gravitating to him, and they wanted to be around him, because he works his butt off and he’s a good teammate. He celebrated with Austin [Simmons] at scrimmages when he would throw good balls. You wanted to be around him because of who he was.
Then at fall camp, the one defense goes against the two offense. When he was running with the twos, we couldn’t stop his ass. I knew if something was going to happen to Austin, that we were in pretty good hands.
No, it’s just awesome to see good things happen to good people. For him to take a chance to come here, with a guy in place and for it to work out the way it did for him, I couldn’t be happier. He’s kind of set a precedent here within one year. It’s going to be pretty hard to match.
On Ole Miss fans at Fiesta Bowl…
I’m so excited for our players to be able to see that and come out to it. A lot of these fans have invested a lot in a lot of different ways over a lot of years. And they deserve this. They deserve a better outcome, but they deserve these opportunities, and they deserve for these opportunities to be on a consistent basis.
That’s the expectation that our chancellor and Keith [Carter] has set for us. When they give you all the things that you need and then you go recruit good players, you’ve got to perform well. Hopefully these opportunities will continue. But it means the world to our players and to our staff that your hard work is recognized and appreciated.
On potential pass interference on final play…
Those situations are tough to call. Yeah, there was contact, but it happens a lot. That’s not why we lost the game. But we just had a lot of opportunities late, but I think it shows you the resiliency of the team. They didn’t care. Was it 18-15? They’re going to go out there and give it all they got. It looks like you ran out of time, but we didn’t execute well enough, didn’t prepare well enough, and we didn’t coach good enough.
On what he’ll remember the most about this team…
To be honest with you, I think I’ll just remember how they embraced each other. There was a lot over the last month or so, however long it’s been now, to where somebody could have not been a good dude. Somebody could have not worked hard. Somebody could have not showed up on time. And I can’t recall one issue. That’s just based on who these guys are. They took the team when all this occurred. Guys like these two guys showed up every day and went to work and made sure the people around them went to work.
But, to me, it’s the smiles, man. It’s the memories, it’s the laughs, it’s the time with those guys and seeing the camaraderie that they grew together. They’re going to be talking about this for a long time, right? Some of it is going to be ‘what could have happened’ and all those things, but they’ve made memories in this year in that locker room that will last a lifetime.
For a lot of this group coming back, there’s going to be a little chip on their shoulder. But also the guys that are leaving, this is a legacy of a team that’s going to be celebrated for a while. It’s going to have to come back at some point and have reunions and stuff like that, as far as getting together.
We appreciate the senior class and what they’ve done for the legacy of this team and making an expectation. I think the underclassmen are going to want to go to work pretty quick, because they’re going to be pretty hungry.
