UF Senior Day at The Swamp: The pressure is all on Ole Miss

(Gator Bait Photo by Chris Spears)

“The difference between winning and losing is when pressure hits.” -- Evander Holyfield

There is no pressure on the Florida Gators today. Sure, they want to play well and above all else, they want to beat the 9th-ranked Ole Miss Rebels (8-2, 4-2 SEC) to give their seniors a sendoff to remember, but there is no pressure on the Gators (5-5, 3-4 SEC) at The Swamp (12 noon, ABC). Nobody really gives the Gators anything more than a chance to play well and still lose the game. Essentially, a moral victory. When the bar is set that low, there really isn't any pressure.

If there is a team feeling the pressure today, it will be the Ole Miss Rebels who have to answer the time honored question, how well can they handle prosperity? Ole Miss is riding high about now. The Rebels are well aware that if they close out the regular season with a 10-2 record they're shoo-ins for the College Football Playoff. They haven't played since November 9 when they took an axe handle to then 2nd-ranked Georgia, neutering the Bulldogs in Oxford with the whole wide world looking on. They've had plenty of time to let former critics go on a mini-apology tour, heaping praise their way. Those same talking heads who called Lane Kiffin a buffoon and predicted a cruise control win for Georgia have spent the last two weeks backtracking. Prior to the Georgia game, Paul Finebaum of the SEC Network called Kiffin the “Miley Cyrus of college football coaching.”

Since the Rebels became Kirby Smart’s worst nightmare, Finebaum says Kiffin is one of college football’s elite coaches.

Elite coaches don’t let their teams rest on their laurels. Elite coaches make sure the next time out after a statement win that their team follows it up with a shot across the bow of critics and future opponents alike. Of course, elite coaches constantly challenge their team to play like champions to keep the pressure squarely on the shoulders of whoever is next on their schedule. Has Lane Kiffin kept Ole Miss on an even keel these past two weeks, pushing them hard but not too hard? Has Lane found ways to neutralize the pressure that comes with national championship expectations?

On paper, this game in The Swamp should be a blowout win for Ole Miss in the event the Rebels play with the same ferocity that led them to neuter Georgia. Of course, the Gators do have a say in the outcome of this one. No longer to they look like the team that was going to roll over and die after back-to-back losses to Georgia and Texas. The Gators responded by making a statement of their own a week ago by kneecapping LSU, the same LSU that just five weeks ago beat Ole Miss, 29-26.

Whether it’s the Florida team that beat LSU, 27-16, last week or the one that went belly up against Texas (49-17 loss), the pressure isn’t on the Gators. Florida doesn’t have a championship to play for, and if the Gators lose to Ole Miss today, they still have the worst Florida State team in since the pre-Bobby Bowden days to even their record for bowl eligibility.

Think of it like this. The Florida Gators have three games to win twice for their first winning record since 2020.

One loss -- either to Florida or next week to Mississippi State -- and Ole Miss can say sayonara to making it to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game, not to mention the bigger prize, which is their first national championship since Johnny Vaught and one-platoon football back in 1960. Sixty-four years is a lot of time in between national championships. It’s been 61 since the last Ole Miss SEC title, so yeah, there is pressure on Ole Miss today. A lot of it.

Will the Rebels play tight? Have they been listening to all the critics who dissed them pre-Georgia reverse course and say they look like the nation’s most complete team, one that’s capable of laying waste to anything and anyone in their path?

In addition to three chances to win two games and post a winning record, the Florida Gators know that Billy Napier will be their head coach next year, which is no small matter. And, if Billy is back, DJ Lagway will be back, too, as well as the majority of the young guys who followed the game plan to perfection a week ago when they held a sack-a-thon at The Swamp to bury LSU.

If Billy Napier were still coaching for his Florida football life, the pressure would certainly be amped up to nearly unbearable levels on the Gators. But athletic director Scott Stricklin, obviously with the okay from the people who write the big checks, made it perfectly clear that Billy’s job isn’t in jeopardy.

If Billy were to go, then there would be an exodus from The Heav starting with Lagway. Georgia, Ole Miss, LSU, Oregon, Ohio State, Miami and  Alabama are among the big name programs that will be shopping for a new quarterback for 2025 and there will be no more desired quarterback anywhere in the country than DJ Lagway. You’ve heard the expression back up a Brinks truck? Well, if DJ were to enter the transfer portal he could all but ask for two Brinks trucks to back up to his front door.

Billy’s going nowhere. DJ will be back. So will Jadan Baugh, Ja’Kobi Jackson and a whole host of Gators ready to make 2025 their own personal revenge tour. There will be pressure on the Gators in 2025, but not today. Not for the rest of the 2024 football season.

The Gators can take the field today and play for seniors like Graham Mertz, who can’t be given enough credit for what he’s done to bring along Lagway and hold the team together during some very difficult times earlier in the season. When it comes to high character Gators, put Graham Mertz right up there with the names Wuerffel and Tebow. Danny and Tim won national championships but things were a whole lot different in their day than they have been the past two seasons. They were surrounded by NFL-level talent. Back in those days the Gators reloaded every year. Graham Mertz came along at a time when the Gators needed cement to hold the building blocks together for a rebuild job.

He did his part. Wouldn’t it be the ultimate way to say thank you than for teammates to swarm to Mertz when he’s introduced to the sellout crowd at The Swamp? Wouldn’t that be one more way the Gators deflect all the pressure and send it in volumes to the Ole Miss sideline?

This is a game the Florida Gators are not expected to win, but don’t think for a second they aren’t capable. Now stars and planets may have to be aligned for Florida to pull off such a staggering feat, but it wouldn’t be the first time it has ever happened. Underdogs that play with an absolutely nothing to lose attitude tend to win games they aren’t expected to for a couple of reasons: (1) the other team has spent far too much time so enamored with itself that it believes it is invincible and forgets to work hard; or (2) the other team is in an unaccustomed place that it plays not to lose instead of playing to win.

We don’t know which Ole Miss team is going to show up today, nor do we know if the Gators will play with the same kind of passion and energy that propelled them to such a stunningly dominant win over LSU last week. If Ole Miss shows up loose, having spent the last two weeks keeping everything in perspective, then the Rebels will be a formidable foe.

However, if Ole Miss is uptight and the Gators are playing with reckless abandon this could turn out to be an afternoon well worth remembering. A lot of people think the Gators will be making a bold statement just by keeping it close.

Close, hell. Why not go out there and win the damn football game?