Ole Miss football practice report: Rebels preparing for SEC showdown with Georgia
OXFORD, Miss. – (Release) The No. 16 Ole Miss football team welcomes No. 2 Georgia to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium this weekend for a key matchup in the Southeastern Conference and the race for the College Football Playoff.
(Click here for Ole Miss Injury/Availability Report.)
Head coach Lane Kiffin recapped the Arkansas win and looked ahead at the next test against Georgia in his weekly press conference. Princely Umanmielen, Trey Amos, Cayden Lee, Dae’Quan Wright and Domonique Thomas also met with the media this week, which can be found below.
Premier Matchup
For the past several seasons, the road to the college football playoff has gone through Georgia, and this year looks to be no different. The Bulldogs have had double-digit wins in each of the last six full seasons under head coach Kirby Smart, including three trips to the national title game and back-to-back championships in 2021-22. Dating back to its loss to Florida in 2020, UGA is 53-0 against teams not named Alabama.
“It’s a great challenge this week, one we’re excited about playing at home,” Kiffin said.
(Click here for Lane Kiffin’s transcript from Monday.)
“We screwed two games up earlier in the year, when you do that, you put yourself in this situation. I don’t talk about playoffs normally, but I told our players—because they hear that all the time—you still have that stuff alive. In my opinion, whoever wins it is going to have to go through Georgia at some point. They’re a premier program in college football.”
Lane Kiffin
As Kiffin said, going through Georgia is no easy task. The Bulldogs have had one of the top front-sevens in college football, and controlling the line of scrimmage will undoubtedly be a key to victory for both teams.
“They do a great job. They don’t have to pressure, their D-line is so good,” the Rebels’ head coach explained. “They do a great job of changing it up. Really big, physical linebackers that pressure,” Kiffin said. “They’re challenging in the way they do it. They’ve been doing this for years. This is an elite program in college football.”
Battle in the Trenches
Perhaps Ole Miss’ greatest strength on either side of the ball this season has been its pass rush. The Rebels lead the nation with 41 sacks as team so far this year as the new additions like Princely Umanmielen and Walter Nolen have been as impactful as advertised.
“It’s a mixture of how much talent and how much coaching we get. The crazy part is, even though we did have eight sacks against Arkansas, we could’ve had more,” Umanmielen said. “We still make little mistakes and we could be even better than we already are.”
Ole Miss will need to lean on that commitment to excellence as it prepares for its toughest test on the schedule against the second-ranked Bulldogs. But it’s the challenge the Rebels have been waiting for all year.
“This game is really big to us and how our season will go. Georgia is a great team. They’ve been a great team for the last four or five years, so it’s a challenge, but we’re up for it.“
Princely Umanmielen
Excitement in the Secondary
Aside from the battle up front, this game could also be won in the Rebel secondary. Georgia’s Achilles Heel this season has been ball security. The Bulldogs rank No. 13 in the SEC and No. 82 nationally with a -0.13 turnover margin per game. Their 11 interceptions lost are tied for the worst in the league and No. 117 in the nation.
“We’re really excited but we have to take it day by day. The game will come around,” Amos said.
“We’re really just practicing, learning our keys. Just want to get better and execute. They have a good running game, that running game can bleed over into big plays for their passing game. We just have to have a good gameplan and just execute at the end of the day.”
Ole Miss DB Trey Amos
Kiffin urged Ole Miss to play its first complete game when it met at halftime against Arkansas, and the Rebels did just that, keeping their foot on the gas in a 63-31 win. Now will some confidence built, they’re ready to take on No. 2.
“I feel like we responded great,” Amos said. “It started in practice, getting back on track after watching the film. Just want to be better, just keep on stacking these wins.”
Game info
Ole Miss and Georgia kick off at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and the game will be broadcast on ABC.
Evelyn Van Pelt
Evelyn has covered sports for over two decades, beginning her journalism career as a sports writer for a newspaper in Austin, Texas. She attended Texas A&M and majored in English. Evelyn's love for Ole Miss began when her daughter Katie attended the university on a volleyball scholarship. Evelyn created the Rebel Walk in 2013 and has served as publisher and managing editor since its inception.
