What Ole Miss needs to do in the Fiesta Bowl to reach CFP National Championship Game

The Ole Miss Rebels and Miami Hurricanes are facing off in the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl on Thursday evening, with a trip to the national championship on the line. This game will be one of the biggest in each program’s history. And if you are just tuning in the past month for each team has been wild — to say the least.

Ole Miss has dealt with the choatic departure of head coach Lane Kiffin in an unprecedented move, while dealing with assistant coaches coming and going between the Rebels and the LSU Tigers.

Still, they’ve managed to shut out the noise and rack up consecutive wins in the College Football Playoff to begin the Pete Golding era, most recently upsetting the Georgia Bulldogs 39-34, thanks to a go-ahead field goal in the final minute.

On the other side, many said Miami didn’t even deserve to be in this year’s College Football Playoff. The Hurricanes have made the most of their postseason opportunity after sneaking into the picture during the final reveal after the conference championships. They beat Texas A&M in a slugfest on the road in a very windy College Station. Then, they had the biggest upset of the postseason with a 24-14 win over the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes last weekend, dominating the line of scrimmage.

Both these teams play a very different style of football. Ole Miss is led by its elite offense, which has scored at least 35 points eight times this season. They rank ninth in scoring (36.8 points per game) and second in yards (488.8 yards per game). The Rebels like a quicker tempo and are an explosive play machine.

Miami, on the other hand, has high success rates on both sides of the ball, but plays a much slower-paced version of football, ranking in the Top 10 in most seconds per snap this season. Their formula for success is simple: win in the trenches and everything else will figure itself out.

Still, Ole Miss has found a way to take these types of teams into shootouts (see the two Georgia games and Oklahoma win), averaging 36 points in those three games.

So, could we see a shootout in Thursday night’s game?

It all comes down to one big matchup: Ole Miss’s offensive line versus Miami’s defensive line. The Hurricanes have been dominant up front. They sacked the Aggies’ quarterback Marcel Reed seven times and had nine tackles for loss in the win over Texas A&M. Last weekend, they got after Julian Sayin five times in the first half alone, resulting in a scoreless first half for Ohio State. The Hurricanes finished with seven tackles for loss in that game.

If the Rebels can get enough traction behind their experienced front five, they’ll likely get some movement in the run game, and Trinidad Chambliss can get going in the passing game. It’s likely Chambliss will have an impact regardless, but exactly how much will be dictated by that matchup.

Miami has shown it can score this season, ending the year on a tear with 151 points combined in its final four games, which were instrumental for the Hurricanes to get into the playoffs. But it is at its best when they control the pace of the game and shut down opposing offenses.

Ole Miss’s best chance to win is in a shootout. If they allow Miami to dominate the line of scrimmage, they’ll struggle to defend the run game and could fall behind early, which it hasn’t done much this season.

So, a shootout is certainly possible, but only one team will be rooting for that outcome.