Column | My greatest night as a Rebel football fan (so far)

OXFORD, Miss. — I don’t deserve this.

I mean, really. The sheer joy of this season and what I witnessed in the Super Dome Thursday night is not something I feel worthy of experiencing.   But it’s not over. I’m perfectly willing to endure a couple more wins and take on additional guilt. (And I’m not even Catholic.)

There have been a lot of firsts for Ole Miss football in the current season, and for me as well. Attending eleven games is a personal record. I admire those of you who have even more this year and those who never miss a game. I’m looking forward to my twelfth in Glendale.

I’m not going to rehash the events since the Egg Bowl because we’re all well aware of them. I’ll just say that I’m incredibly happy about changing the narrative around Ole Miss football with the win over Georgia. Media members are having to adjust their talking points, and much of the college football world is behind us. It is a sight to behold.

I wish I could explain the sense of calm I’ve had for Rebel games this year. It certainly hasn’t been my experience over the past 47 years of attending them. Now, I’m not saying I was always confident in victory or that I was at peace no matter the outcome. It was just a different feeling. However, in the Sugar Bowl, I believed. Two things stood out. The Lacy fumble and subsequent return for a Georgia touchdown was crushing, and it could have easily felt like all was lost at that point. But, I sat there and reflected on a similar situation, the I’Tavius Mathers fumble against Bama just before the half in 2014. We recovered from that and went on to win what was at the time, the greatest Ole Miss football experience of my life (this one topped it), so why couldn’t we do so again?

Then there was the three-play sequence that Chambliss had early in the fourth quarter. In my opinion, it was the greatest three consecutive plays by an Ole Miss player in the storied history of the program. Prior to it, I would have gone with Jevan Snead’s three throws in Baton Rouge in 2008.  (If you’ve never seen it, check it out on YouTube.) After the second one, where Trinidad scrambled for 55 yards before completing the pass to Lacy for a critical first down, as I’m sure was the case with more than a few of you, I thought of Archie. I then looked across the dome to his banner hanging from the rafters and told myself, “We aren’t losing this game.” Of course, Chambliss followed up the long scramble throw with the perfect pass to Trey Wallace while running to his right. I don’t even know what to say about that one. Yes, there were plenty of tense moments between that and the final whistle (or the third final whistle), but you couldn’t convince me that Trinidad wasn’t going to find a way to win.

I had a friend suggest to me afterwards that the game was the final matchup against Arkansas in Omaha all over again. That’s a great analogy. Trinidad = DeLucia. For just about all of us, those were the two most critical big-time performances by Rebel athletes in our lives. I’m so thankful I witnessed them both. And oh, by the way, we still had to win two games after the DeLucia masterpiece to be national champions.

So, now it’s on to Glendale, Arizona, to face a tough Miami squad. The Rebels are the underdogs again. The Hurricane defense looked great against Ohio State, but let’s be clear: Chambliss is not remotely the same type of quarterback as Julian Sayin. Sayin is a pro-style dropback passer who ran for NEGATIVE 44 yards this season. Chambliss ran for over 500 yards. He also threw for 50 more than Sayin. You also can’t convince me that Carson Beck doesn’t have recurring nightmares about his matchup with the Rebels last year.

January 1st in New Orleans was magical. I got to experience it with my brother, and I will always treasure that. My oldest son will join me in Glendale. Both he and my younger son plan to be in Miami should we play in the championship game. On my weather app, my saved locations included my home of Oxford, the three cities where my two boys and daughter live: Nashville, Sarasota, and Augusta, Georgia, and Omaha. I saved Omaha before my trip to the College World Series, and I’m never deleting it. I’ll do the same for Miami, should we finish the job there.

Other than wearing red rather than powder blue this Thursday, don’t do anything different. I’ll sport my lucky Archie socks and yell, “Been doin’ it all night!” at the first sign of a Miami penalty. (A tradition among my friends in section N that is never more enjoyable than when the opposing team kicks the opening kickoff out of bounds in a day game.)

I’ve never been a big New Year’s resolution guy, but I think mine this year may be to wear some type of Ole Miss gear every day. I’m four-for-four so far.

Hotty Toddy! Hope to see you in Glendale. And Miami.

Lane Kiffin? Never heard of him.