In November of 2019, Ole Miss was back at one of its lowest points in program history.
It was on Thanksgiving night that Elijah Moore's unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and a missed extra point cost the Rebels a chance at finishing the season 5-7 with a win over their in-state rival. At that point, Ole Miss wasn't playing for a postseason berth. It was simply playing for bragging rights and the jobs on its coaching staff.
Fast forward two years, and Ole Miss is leaving Starkville with an Egg Bowl win, its second in as many years, and has likely punched its ticket to a New Year's Six bowl game behind the first 10-win regular season in school history.
How quickly things can change.
I've said it time and time again on The Grove Report Podcast this season: Ole Miss managed to win games this year that it wouldn't have in years past. Thursday night was another example of that.
The Rebels had to overcome a slow start on offense, but its defense held its own, forcing Mississippi State to field goal attempts when it got into the red zone. For a team where the storyline has been "offense, offense, offense," and rightfully so, it's the defense that has shown the biggest level of improvement and has even secured wins for the Rebels in 2021.
Matt Corral wasn't perfect, but he didn't have to be, and that's been the story for the latter half of Ole Miss' 2021 campaign. Corral is special, and some might even call him a generational arm talent. Those types of players don't grow on trees, but he is human, and when his offense has stalled on drives late this season, his defense has risen to the occasion.
Let's be honest here, too: Corral had every right to pack up and go elsewhere after that 2019 debacle. Instead, he stayed and is likely going to be a first round draft pick come April. From losing the starting quarterback job in the midst of a season that was a collective cry for help from a coaching staff whose days were numbered to being in the Heisman conversation is worthy of an entire story in itself.
Maybe I'm rambling. Maybe I'm thinking out loud. But it's not every day you see a four-win team that's the laughing stock of college football turn into a 10-win team in the span of two years. This season, we've seen that.
The question now stands: Can Ole Miss sustain this level of success? The Rebels have seen 10 win seasons before counting bowl game victories, and this is their third double-digit win season since 2003. What comes after those seasons, however, hasn't been the same story. In 2004 and 2016, both years that followed 10-win seasons in Oxford, the Rebels finished with a losing record.
It's feasible to think that Ole Miss might take a step back next season when Corral heads to the NFL, but that remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that Ole Miss has made itself nationally relevant again seemingly overnight, and the storyline began and ended in Starkville, Mississippi.
If you're an Ole Miss fan, you should relish in that.
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