Golding, Rebels continue 'special' run, oust UGA

NEW ORLEANS — The day before Ole Miss secured its biggest win in decades, the team ran through its usual “Fast Friday” routine, including a dry run for a late-game kick. Lucas Carneiro lined up near the 30-yard line, moving toward the north end zone, strode to the ball, and kicked.

He missed.

Rebels coach Pete Golding ran the routine again, and he got the same result. It wasn’t until the third try that Carneiro booted one through the uprights to mercifully end a slow “Fast Friday” ahead of the Sugar Bowl.

The routine might’ve served as the perfect analogy for this Ole Miss team’s run to the College Football Playoff semifinals. For weeks, there has been drama and uncertainty and a litany of reasons to believe the facade would crumble, but when it mattered most, the Rebels delivered.

With six seconds left and the score tied, Carneiro drilled a 47-yard field goal from nearly the same spot he had missed a day earlier, helping Ole Miss beat Georgia 39-34 on Thursday as the Rebels advanced to the Fiesta Bowl, where they’ll face No. 10 Miami.

“He got his mulligans out [Wednesday],” Golding said after Thursday’s win.

If it was all symbolism — a kick that underscored Ole Miss’s role as college football’s official team of destiny after coach Lane Kiffin’s ignominious exit for LSU a month ago — no one inside the Rebels’ locker room seems eager to embrace the metaphor.

“We’re not focused on destiny or anything like that,” said quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who threw for 362 yards, including a 40-yard completion to De’Zhaun Stribling on third-and-5 with 32 seconds left to set up the winning kick. “We just want to play ball and have fun. A lot of people did doubt us — before the season, then when our coach left. But we’re just having fun, and I think that shows.”

For a month, players have fended off questions about their departed coach. The offensive staff, most already ticketed for full-time roles at LSU, has worked double duty, game-planning for the Rebels by day and spending early mornings and late nights working for Kiffin. And Golding, in his first two games as an interim head coach, has delivered back-to-back playoff wins.

“The guys, it’s such a mature group,” Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter said. “The leadership in the locker room has shown on the field. They’ve never flinched. They just keep going. This wasn’t a perfect game, but they kept going and found a way to win.”

Even as Ole Miss prepared for Thursday’s Sugar Bowl, Kiffin’s presence loomed large.

Rumors swirled earlier in the week that Kiffin would attend the game, the guest of Louisiana governor Jeff Landry. On Tuesday night, Kiffin tweeted a photo of LSU’s coaching staff working during a “late-night meeting.” Several of those same coaches had been in Ole Miss meeting rooms hours before. Instead of the Sugar Bowl, Kiffin attended LSU’s women’s basketball game Thursday, but he offered a show of support for the Rebels after Thursday’s win. While Ole Miss players and staff had worked to maintain a civil tone after Kiffin’s abrupt departure, the Rebels’ Sugar Bowl performance had the feel of a team exorcising its past and embracing the moment.

“It was like a slap and the backhand,” Ole Miss defensive tackle Zxavian Harris said of Kiffin’s departure. “We took that personally, especially this game. This was a personal game, too.”

And yet it wasn’t Kiffin’s influence or his absence that won Ole Miss the game. It was a relentless ability to get back up and fight again, tailback Kewan Lacy said.

“It never crossed my mind,” said Lacy, who ran for 98 yards and a pair of touchdowns in the win. “We still have the same group of guys going out there playing each down with the right mentality.”

If might not have been destiny that Carneiro connected on the same kick he missed twice a day earlier, nor magic that allowed Chambliss to dance through pressure again and again on an early fourth-quarter touchdown drive, nor fate that allowed Golding to become just the 11th coach with multiple playoff wins despite having coached just two career games.

It might not be that Ole Miss has any extra motivation because of Kiffin’s departure either, but as the Rebels erased a 10-point second-half deficit and sent Georgia to its first loss in 75 games in which it held a lead entering the fourth quarter, it had the feel of something more than just a win.

“To be around these dudes on a daily basis, I don’t want it to end,” Golding said. “It’s definitely special. … I know everybody else was doubting us this season, but the goal this season, why Trinidad came, was to compete for a championship. That’s something we’re going to do around here on a consistent basis.”