The College Football Playoffs is starting this weekend. We’ve waited for a full week without postseason football. This weekend the wait will finally be over. Ole Miss will be playing their first game without their head coach, Lane Kiffin. While that will bring headlines of its own, they will play a very capable opponent in Tulane. The Green Wave won their conference championship. Now they will look to win a playoff game. Let’s see if Tulane can pull it off.
The Lane Difference
Let’s start with the obvious. Kiffin is gone, and that will change how Ole Miss will do things going into this game. The team, however, should be ready to go. They have a lot to prove, and most of the players and internal pieces at Ole Miss seem fired up to compete. This will definitely be a “we can do it without him” mentality for all the Rebels players.
The Past
There is another key from this game that should be taken pretty seriously. They already played. The Rebels had a blowout win earlier this year. The Rebels ran all over the Green Wave and the score could have been worse. If Tulane will look to change that, it will start with their defense. The Rebels have been known to control games all year long. Disrupting that control could be a key factor in this game.
How Can Tulane Pull It Off?
It’s pretty simple. They are going to have to score with the Rebels. The Ole Miss defense isn’t the best. It has gotten the job done in conference play and not much more. Tulane will have to capitalize offensively much more than they did in the first game.
There is some good news for Tulane. Both sides of the ball have gotten much better than they were in the first matchup. To win this weekend, though, every chance the offense will get will have to be capitalized on. Then its just play the clock game. Slow down the Rebels as much as possible and simply use clock. The Rebels are going to score. There is no way around that. But if Tulane can slow them down and use up clock on offense then it could end up being a close game.
Bottom Line
While the Green Wave are certainly better than they were in the first matchup, it doesn’t look like they have enough to win this game. It will be a challenge to get stops against the Rebels offense. On the other side, the Tulane offense will be playing against one of the strongest defenses they have seen all year. While Ole Miss should get tested, the Rebels should be able to get out of Oxford with a double-digit win.
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