Ole Miss Football: Rebels ready to move on from ugly win over Kent State

3. This game didn’t matter, and Ole Miss played like it

There won’t be any bowl game at the end of the 2018 season for Ole Miss. They’ll be eligible for the postseason again in 2019, but they’ll have to wade through one more season in no-man’s-land before they have a chance to play a meaningful game in December again.

Given those constraints, Ole Miss has a unique mission this year. They want to create as much havoc as they can in the SEC West. They’re not winning any conference championships themselves, so the Rebels have made it their mission to play the role of spoiler for the programs in their own division who do have championship aspirations.

Beating Kent State on Saturday was nice, but it doesn’t really provide much value at all. Ole Miss is aiming higher, much higher than a win over a Kent State squad that sits at 1-3 on the season.

For that reason, it was understandable that Ole Miss started slowly against the Flashes. There wasn’t anything at stake during this game, and that was evident in the energy the Rebels’ exuded early on. When push came to shove, they turned on the jets and ran away from this team, just like they knew they would. Ole Miss will be fine, they just didn’t care about this game.