OXFORD, Miss. – About an hour before kickoff, athletic director Keith Carter stood on the sideline, just a few yards from Ole Miss legend Eli Manning, and did his best to describe what the last month had been like for the Rebels’ football program.

Chaotic would be a good place to start. Contentious would be fitting and even maddening at times.

Good luck, though, in finding a more dysfunctional build-up to a game earmarked as the most important in school history, certainly in the modern era.

“Somebody told me that I ought to write a book about it,” Carter said with an easy smile. “I said, ‘No, I’ve tried to block it all out.’”

Not the season, and certainly not Saturday, a landmark moment in the annals of Ole Miss football. The Rebels, in their first-ever College Football Playoff game, pounced on Tulane from the outset and pounded the Green Wave in a convincing 41-10 victory before a record crowd of 68,251 at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

It was win No. 1 for newly promoted Pete Golding as Ole Miss’ head coach and one the Hotty Toddy Nation was thirsting for ever since Lane Kiffin’s messy exit last month when he bolted for LSU.

“I’ve felt a different vibe, I really have, the way everyone has connected with Pete,” said Carter, referencing a vibe that included Archie Manning coming back to speak to the team this week for the first time since early in Kiffin’s tenure.

At a place known for throwing festive parties, hence the long-standing boast by Ole Miss fans that they’ve “never lost a party,” this was one giant football party. And make no mistake. Ole Miss fans, players and coaches (even the ones on loan from LSU) rejoiced in every minute of it.

While Kiffin might have tweeted during the game — a statistic showcasing his impressive offensive numbers since the advent of coach-to-player communication — he wasn’t around to see the Rebels make history.

“We were ready, just blocking out all extra noise,” Ole Miss receiver Deuce Alexander said. “People were saying we weren’t going to be the same team without coach (Kiffin). He’s a great coach and all, but at the end of the day, the players play the game. So we were just prepared for the moment, just ready to go out there and prove everybody wrong.”

Ready, the Rebels (12-1) were. They ran seven offensive plays on their first two possessions and led 14-0 before anybody could blink. The Green Wave never got closer than 11 points the rest of the way.

It was Golding’s first game as Ole Miss’ coach and the Rebels’ first game without Kiffin, who accepted the LSU head job two days after the Egg Bowl win over Mississippi State. He pushed to continue coaching the Rebels throughout the playoff. As the ordeal dragged on, some players became increasingly frustrated and expressed their displeasure on social media. Carter and the Ole Miss administration made it clear they were moving on without Kiffin.

He took most of his offensive staff with him to LSU, and according to sources, told the coaches they had better be on the plane with him to LSU when he departed on Nov. 30 if they wanted a job. In the end, Kiffin agreed to let offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. and others come back and coach Ole Miss’ team in the playoff, but they’re all headed back to LSU after Ole Miss’ playoff run is over.

Meanwhile, LSU’s interim head coach and one of the Tigers’ best recruiters, Frank Wilson, was recently hired to join Ole Miss’ staff after LSU’s bowl game. Sources told On3 that Kiffin wasn’t planning to keep Wilson along with general manager Austin Thomas, who has returned to Ole Miss in that same role.

“You couldn’t make this stuff up if you wanted to, the wildest shit you could imagine, how all this went down,” one Ole Miss staff member told On3. “I give these kids credit. They had a lot of questions. There was a lot of anger. Think about it. This is the greatest season in Ole Miss history, and you’re playing without your head coach, who left a playoff team for another job, and you’re being coached by other coaches who are going to one of your biggest rivals when the playoff is over and basically working for two schools at the same time.

“I don’t care what happens the rest of the way. These players are champions.”

Kiffin told On3 earlier in the week that he had “moved on” and didn’t feel like it was appropriate to make any comments heading into the game. But afterward, he congratulated the Ole Miss coaches and players on his X account and singled out Golding and seeing his two boys on the sideline.

For Golding, as has been the case since he was promoted, his focus remained squarely on the players. Over and over again, Saturday in a packed interview room, he lauded the players.

But he also threw a little shade in Kiffin’s direction when asked about some of the specific changes he made in taking over the program. He immediately pointed to his right from the podium and asked what used to be sitting down front in the team meeting room.

“We got rid of the basketball goal first,” quipped Golding, referencing a portable basketball goal Ole Miss players and staff would dunk on and play games on during meetings when Kiffin was the coach.

Golding explained that as a player he didn’t like the “forced fun aspect” of bringing teams together. What he did do after being named coach was have players make a list of things that they would want and called every player in to meet with him.

“It was like, ‘Hey give me one thing that you love the most about Ole Miss and give me the one thing that you would change first in this program if you were the head coach,’” Golding recounted.

The most important part was keeping the routine the same, no matter all the staff swapping and keeping everything being said on the outside — on the outside.

Chants of “Pete! Pete!” rang out as Golding left the field, and he joked that he’s also been on the flip side when his teams or defenses haven’t played as well. He also downplayed any difficulty of working through the chaos with the players and having them focused.

“I mean it would be one thing, no disrespect, if this was the Pop-Tarts Bowl or something like that,” Golding said. “It would have been really hard, but this is the playoffs. When people start talking about, ‘Are they going to play or not going to play?’ What are we talking about? I mean, these kids have gone 11-1 up to this point and have a home playoff game for the first time in the history of the program. … They don’t really care who runs them through the tunnel. That’s the truth. They care about their preparation. They care about the plan, are they getting developed?”

Golding held down the curse words, only a couple of “shits,” and joked that he was working on his cursing. He also wasn’t buying any conspiracy theories about the coaches on loan from LSU, including Weis, somehow not being fully invested.

Ole Miss finished with 497 yards – 346 passing and 151 rushing – and racked up 29 first downs. The Rebels were 5-of-7 in the red zone, and the only penalty came on fourth down when they took a delay and punted.

“I had zero concern with Charlie Weis calling this game for this one reason: Charlie Weis cannot afford not to call a hell of a game,” Golding said. “All he’s heard his whole life is that this is Lane Kiffin’s offense, it’s Lane Kiffin’s offense, it’s Lane Kiffin’s offense. Charlie Weis calls the offense just like he’s done all year. He did a great job tonight. So I had no concern because the last thing Charlie wanted to do was come out here and lay an egg, right? Then it’s ‘Who’s offense is it?’ and you (the media) would write about it.”

The only real downer for Ole Miss on Saturday was running back Kewan Lacy leaving the game with a bruised shoulder. He went back into the game after initially injuring it, but later left the sideline for the locker room. Golding said Lacy, the Rebels’ leading rusher, would be further evaluated.

Ole Miss now gets another shot at Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day. The Bulldogs handed the Rebels their only loss this season.

As historic as Saturday’s win was, there won’t be much celebrating for the Rebels.

“The expectation is to make the playoff every year,” Golding said. “That’s why Keith Carter invests the way he does and runs the program the way he does. That’s the expectation and that’s what was unique about this group. We felt like last year we screwed that up. We had a talented enough team to be able to make the playoff and we didn’t. So all these guys that came into this team this year, their expectation was to make the playoff,  and that came true for them. I think that’s going to be for every class going forward. That’s the expectation of where this program is.

“It’s a top-5 program in the country, and that’s your expectation every year.”

Memorial Stadium (Norman, Oklahoma) — The stage was set for Oklahoma. Heck, the Sooners earned the right to set it. This was supposed to be the ushering in of a new era of postseason football for the No. 8 team in the country that had won 10 games in what was one of the toughest schedules this year.

No. 9 Alabama was even one of those teams that Oklahoma beat on its way to earning this spot. And Saturday night, all was going well for the Sooners. It was going so well, in fact, that after the first quarter, some Oklahoma fans might’ve peeked at flights and hotel rates for the Rose Bowl from inside Memorial Stadium.

And then the Alabama Crimson Tide curled and rolled the Sooners, 34-24, and are headed to Pasadena. After opening with 17 unanswered points, Oklahoma collapsed under the weight of that wave, becoming the only team in College Football Playoff history to blow a 17-point lead. And now, the Sooners have done it twice — before Saturday, in 2018 against Georgia.

[Best Teams in the College Football Playoff Era: Creating the Ultimate 12-team CFP]

Here are my takeaways from Alabama’s College Football Playoff first-round victory against Oklahoma on Saturday:

1. Alabama is the most resilient team in the CFP

NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Zabien Brown #2 of the Alabama Crimson Tide stiff-arms John Mateer #10 of the Oklahoma Sooners during the second quarter during the 2025 College Football Playoff first-round game on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)

Crimson Tide quarterback Ty Simpson is an avid reader and listener of college football news. Following the largest comeback win in Alabama postseason history, Simpson took a moment to facetiously thank media members during his post-game press conference for choosing Oklahoma to win on Saturday night. 

“I guess we can thank you guys for that,” an emboldened Simpson said. “You guys kind of wrote us off in a sort of way. So I appreciate that.”

After building a three-score lead, the Sooners watched the Crimson Tide recover a fumbled punt, pick off Oklahoma quarterback John Mateer and return it 50 yards to the end zone — all before their First Team All-American kicker Tate Sandell missed not one but two field goals in the final minutes to solidify the worst collapse in College Football Playoff history.

Meanwhile, the Alabama Crimson Tide will prepare to take on No. 1 Indiana in the Rose Bowl for the CFP quarterfinal game. This team that punches back and played its best football with its back against the wall is one that the Hoosiers must prepare for on New Year’s Day.

[MORE CFP: 4 Takeaways from Oregon’s Blowout of James Madison in CFP First Round]

2. You can’t be this up-and-down and contend for the national championship

NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: John Mateer #10 of the Oklahoma Sooners is hit by Deontae Lawson #0 of the Alabama Crimson Tide during the first quarter during the College Football Playoff first-round game on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)

The Crimson Tide began down — just like they did against Georgia in the SEC championship game. But the last three quarters of Saturday’s game demonstrated Alabama to be just who it says it is: the kind of team that can open with a loss to a bad Florida State and also be the first team in six years to walk into Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia, and come out with a win.

DeBoer’s task now is to find a way to make certain that the team that showed up at Georgia earlier this season and at Oklahoma in the first round is the same one against the Hoosiers. Linebacker Deontae Lawson said that’s his job too. But Bama’s best trait isn’t one that shows itself until it’s in a fight for its life.

“Man, I just think we’re a resilient team,” Lawson said during a post-game press conference. “And even though we were down 17-0, we didn’t really look at the scoreboard. Coach DeBoer always says, ‘Keep playing the game. The game will come back to you.’ … We just keep fighting.”

[MORE CFP: 4 Takeaways From Miami’s Defense-Heavy CFP Upset Win vs. Texas A&M]

3. Oklahoma’s cartoonish errors 

NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Head coach Brent Venables of the Oklahoma Sooners speaks to an official during the fourth quarter against the Alabama Crimson Tide on December 19, 2025. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)

Let’s look at the bigger ones:

• Mateer’s air-mailed pass intended for receiver JaVonnie Gibson in the first half that would’ve gone for six
• Mateer’s pick-six with barely a minute left in the second quarter
• Punter Grayson Miller’s fumble/blocked punt
• Sandell’s two missed field goals — one from 36 yards, then from 51 yards, despite hitting a 51-yarder in the first quarter — to bring the game to one-score with not five minutes left to play

These are blunders. Errors that aren’t forced but self-inflicted. It’s difficult to win any game with those kinds of mistakes on your drive chart. It’s nearly impossible in a game of this magnitude, against a team as talented and as resilient as the Crimson Tide.

[MORE CFP: 4 Takeaways From Ole Miss’ Dominant CFP First-Round Win Against Tulane]

4. A (brief) live concert

NORMAN, OKLAHOMA: Keon Keeley #31 of the Alabama Crimson Tide celebrates after defeating the Oklahoma Sooners in the College Football Playoff first-round game. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

Oklahoma usually plays 50 Cent’s “Many Men” before the start of the fourth quarter. In an attempt to make a statement for its first CFP game at Owen Field, the Sooners brought the rapper himself out onto the field to perform the song for fans in a Hard to Kill Hoodie.

“I didn’t know it was live,” DeBoer said during the post-game press conference.

“I didn’t know who 50 Cent was,” Simpson added, “but I know that song.”

“We play that song at practice on Fridays,” Lawson said.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him @RJ_Young.

Steve Spurrier is never shy about voicing his thoughts on college football. And he’s not a huge fan of a more recent development in the last few years. Well, a few of them.

There have been plenty of changes to the sport in that timeframe. The implementation of new transfer portal windows, reform of the transfer process in general, the introduction of NIL legislation and more.

Spurrier recently joined Another Dooley Noted Podcast and opened up on the state of the sport. He was blunt.

“Yeah, I wish all this had not happened, but it is what it is now,” Steve Spurrier said. “I don’t know how they change it, because they don’t know how to do it either. There have got to be smarter people than me that can look at it and say, ‘Why don’t we put some like… you’ve got to stay two years somewhere.’ Or just anything. And every school gets $20 or $22 million and that’s it, you can’t spend more than that. And you’ve got to have accounts of it.”

In other words, let’s rein in the free transfer era a bit. And let’s level the playing field when it comes to NIL spending. The alternative is the kind of chaos we’ve seen unfold in the sport.

For Steve Spurrier, there are some obvious things that should be cleaned up. For one, it’s impossible for most people to get a handle on what’s going on in the NIL world.

“I heard Ricky Neuheisel talking on his radio show the other day, he said, ‘College football is the only sport in the world, or the only business in the world you don’t have to tell anybody how much money you make,’” Spurrier said. “It’s supposed to be public knowledge.”

Steve Spurrier provided two high-profile examples. Both came from the SEC.

“Nobody knows what (DJ) Lagway got,” Spurrier said. “They asked me, ‘What did Lagway get?’ I said, ‘I think three, four or five million. Arch Manning supposedly got six million a year. So I can’t put an exact number on it because they don’t tell you.”

For those in charge in the sport, the lack of transparency is a feature, not a bug, Spurrier said. Coaches have an easier time managing things if it’s not readily apparent that one player is getting paid far more than another.

“Obviously they tell the players don’t tell anybody how much you got now, because we can’t give everybody that much,” Steve Spurrier said. “So yeah, it’s just what it is. But like people say, the attendance is good as ever, the TV ratings are as good as ever. So people are watching and there’s great interest in it, I will say that. But just have some rules somehow. You would think they would want to do that, but they haven’t done it yet.”

ESPN analyst and former head coach Nick Saban ruffled a few feathers earlier in the week, but could not hand out some “I told you so” takes.

Saban is one of many advocates of some significant change in the College Football Playoff system who saw Saturday’s results validate a point he was making all week. The system, fairly obviously, is broken.

Two Group of Five teams reached the CFP after the ACC stumbled, fumbled, and tumbled to 8-5 Duke winning the league. After Saturday’s results for Tulane and James Madison, it’s fair to wonder: what on Earth were they doing in the Playoff?

Ole Miss waxed Tulane 41-10 in a game that wasn’t even as close as its lop-sided score. Oregon likewise easily controlled JMU, rolling up a 34-6 halftime edge before taking the easy victory. After an fairly electric Oklahoma/Alabama showdown on Friday and a defensive battle between Miami and Texas A&M on Saturday morning, the CFP suddenly fell very, very flat.

Enter Saban having built a solid base for his “I told you so” platform. Back on Thursday, on The Pat McAfee Show, Saban rebuked the entire idea of G5 teams in the Playoff. “Would we allow ther winner of the AAA baseball league… in the World Series playoffs?” asked Saban. “That’s the equivalent of what we do when JMU gets into the College Football Playoff and Notre Dame doesn’t.”

Likewise, Urban Meyer made similar arguments last week. On The Triple Option podcast, he advocated for a qualification test for G5 teams– they should play three teams in the top 50 to qualify. “You’re telling the [Notre Dame] Fighting Irish to sit home and James Madison’s going?” asked Meyer. “The better team is supposed to be in the game.”

It was certainly clear on Saturday that the better team was not actually in the game. Joe Tessitore and Jesse Palmer actually made that point clearly in broadcasting the Ole Miss/Tulane blowout.

“This has been a completely non-competitive game,” Tessitore said. “If this were Notre Dame, what kind of game would we have had?”

Jesse Palmer stated, “Imagine how big this environment already is… and what that would have looked like if Notre Dame had that opportunity…. I think this is something that the committee needs to continue working out as they press forward.”

Palmer and Tessitore made a more moderate case, essentially adovicating allowing one team to make a Playoff appearance, but not a second.

That said, considering the trouble that both G5 teams had, a separate bracket might be the only way to make the Playoff experience tenable for Group of Five schools.

With power conferences going to nine-game schedules, it’s also less and less likely that big schools will want to play top Group of Five foes.

Faizon Brandon’s decision to return to the field late in his senior senior was eerily similar to the decision made by another Grimsley player just five seasons earlier.

“I’m very glad to end it the right way,” he said.

Travis Shaw, who at the time was ranked as high as the No. 4 defensive lineman in his senior class class, was — like Brandon — coming off a state championship the year before. Also like Brandon, Shaw was injured early in the year — Shaw missed all eight of the first games to start the 2021 season, returning to the field just in time for senior night and a playoff run.

But Brandon, the nation’s top-ranked quarterback and 2024 N.C. Gatorade Player of the Year, had to have had more on his mind than Shaw did.

After all, a lot has changed in five years.

Shaw had to weigh the possibility of returning to the field and getting re-injured and how that might affect his ability to play right away as a freshman.

The birth of the “NIL era” in college football means players have a real financial risk.

Brandon’s injury — a ligament on his right thumb — was in an area where you can’t be too careful.

“Faizon,” who has earned the first-name-only recognition statewide that few players reach in four years in any sport, was also the athlete who challenged the state’s NIL rules and won.

If anyone understood what was at stake, he did.

But sports are not made with the spirit of accounting.

They were made for competitors.

“When he goes out and everybody that thinks they know says ‘You shouldn’t come back.’ I got phone calls saying he had already moved to Tennessee. I thought that was funny because he was in my office when I got that call,” Grimsley coach Darryl Brown said. “And everything else, you know, like he’s done, he’s not playing at Grimsley High School anymore. And he does everything within his power to get himself back to be a part of this run with his teammates. He could have said, I’m good, I already won a state championship.”

In his final year, he returned to the playoffs after missing all but the season opener, wasn’t quite himself. Yet, while playing a total of just six games, and throwing 11 touchdowns, he also walked away as a two-time N.C. High School Athletic Association champion and a two-time MVP.

“Playing high school football in anywhere, playing varsity high school football, for anybody listening, it means something,” Brown said. “It matters. It’s important. A lot of times everybody wants to speed stuff up. But that school you’re at and the teammates you’re with, and the coaches you play for, that matters. And you can see that it means something to our kids.”

He had all the reasons, probably millions if you count every potential dollar, to not play again for the Whirlies. He would have still walked away as one of the best North Carolina high school quarterbacks since the turn of the century.

But he didn’t go out as a healthy scratch.

He went out as a two-time champion, two-time MVP, and his legacy at Grimsley — like Shaw’s — was cemented where it should have always been: on the field.

“I was just trying to give it everything I got, you know, go out there and lay it on the line,” Brandon said. “That was the biggest thing that I felt whenever I came to realization that it would be in my last high school game is just giving it everything I got.”

The search is on for Michigan to not just find a quality replacement for Sherrone Moore as its next head football coach, but more importantly to scout a figurehead who will bring stability to a program that badly needs it.

And despite the Wolverines arriving late to the college football coaching carousel, with seemingly all the best options already accounted for, a recent resignation at a major program could actually help the school at this crucial moment.

The departure of coaching veteran Kyle Whittingham from Utah could spell a blessing in disguise for Michigan, ESPN broadcaster Matt Barrie said on his eponymous show.

What Michigan needs right now

“What they need is Kyle Whittingham. They need Kyle Whittingham,” Barrie said on his college football program of Michigan’s ongoing search.

Not only is Whittingham a coaching figure who has been a proven winner and fielded consistently-competitive teams. He also has a very good reputation.

“They need Whittingham, who ran a good, clean program at Utah,” Barrie said. 

“I get it. He’s older. He’s not the sexiest hire in terms of name recognition and youth. But you need a guy to steady that ship.”

Michigan needs to be steadied

The ship has most certainly not been steady these last couple years.

Whether it was the Covid-era recruiting scandal under Jim Harbaugh, the sign-stealing affair connected to former assistant Connor Stalions, or the shocking removal of Sherrone Moore following an alleged relationship with a staffer that resulted in him facing criminal charges, it’s clear Michigan needs a reboot.

And yet, despite everything, it’s also been quite a run for the Wolverines for one very good reason, as the program won its first national championship of the century under Harbaugh’s direction in 2023.

But given everything that happened during and since then, change is in order.

So, is Whittingham the answer?

Judging by his own recent remarks, he very well could be.

Following his own departure from Utah, the veteran coach very much gave the impression that he is still interested in patroling a sideline somewhere.

“Who knows? We’ll see, I guess, stepping down, stepping away, and re-evaluate things and see where we’re at. I’m a free agent. I’m in the transfer portal,” Whittingham told reporters.

“Like I said, I’m at peace and I did not want to be that guy that overstayed his welcome with people just saying, ‘Hey, when’s this guy gonna leave?’ That was not my intention, ever. I hope I didn’t do that. I’m sure with some people, I did do that, but the timing to me, the timing is right.”

He is a proven winner

Whittingham is the all-time winningest coach in Utah football history, going 177-88 during his 21 seasons with the program.

Michigan is looking for known commodity, although at 66 he may be on the older end of the spectrum as the school considers what it hopes will be a long-term solution.

But having an experienced head coach suddenly come on the market at this exact moment must have Michigan wondering if he could be the answer, as most of the other high-profile names are already taken or staying put where they are, getting lucrative extensions to prevent their fleeing.

Known as someone who has recruited and fielded some punishing defenses over the years, and whose teams have traditionally dominated at home, Whittingham could be the man for the job.

What the markets are saying

Whittingham remains the favorite to become the next head coach at Michigan, sitting out in front with 22 percent odds to take the job, according to the prediction market Kalshi.

Washington head coach Jedd Fisch sits in second with 16 percent likelihood, and Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm places third at 14 percent.

(Barrie)

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