Almost. The Cougars almost defeated the Rebels, breaking their undefeated streak. Trinidad Chambliss had nearly cemented himself as one of the top SEC QBs. Ole Miss football's nail-biter against Washington State was filled with these and several other almosts.
Coach Lane Kiffin was far from happy with a 24-21 win against the Cougars, and he is never the one to mince words. In his post-game press conference, Kiffin called out the glaring issues that a game against Washington State brought out, especially with QB Trinidad Chambliss, who so far had a really strong case for being the Rebels' next permanent starting QB.
"Trinidad [Chambliss] started slow. Missed a really critical in route there that would've converted on 3rd and long, but he made some plays for us, especially on the drive at the end of the first half," Kiffin said.
"Overall, he did some good things, obviously with the scramble touchdown, but he did not play consistently like he had. It is what it is, and you're not going to play perfect every week, and he still was 20-for-29 with two touchdowns. "
"So, he did some good things, but not as consistent as we need to be, and we weren't around him, especially in protection. They took a lot of risks, like I said, with blitz zero. We had a few guys that needed a little time, and we didn't get the plays off."
Although Chambliss went 20-for-29, his accuracy, especially his red zone accuracy sounded major alarm bells for Ole Miss. Additionally, he was sacked thrice.
Luckily, his 35-yard touchdown pass to Cayden Lee with 6:51 remaining in the third quarter kept them in the lead till the clock ran out at the end of the fourth quarter.
The offense was borderline terrible in the first half, until Kewan Lacy running the ball came as a ray of hope. The Cougars dominated the scoreboard for the majority of the three quarters, first, third, and fourth, and were merely a field goal away from tying the game.
Keeping the offensive struggles aside, Chambliss performance all but threw a wrench in his strong case to be Ole Miss' permanant starting QB over Austin Simmons.
Simmons will shortly be back to "100% health" and might be Kiffin's choice over Chambliss if the Michigan native is unable to fix his game in the following week.
“I just told our players that we did get to 1-0 today and that’s the most important thing, but that was about the only good thing,"