Week 11 in college football allows us to look forward to some exciting conference games.
Saturday will feature a must-see SEC matchup between No. 11 Alabama and No. 15 LSU. With College Football Playoff implications on the line in the last full month of the regular season, what does each team need to capitalize on to take home the win?
No. 3 Georgia will visit No. 16 Ole Miss in a matchup that is expected to keep college football fans locked in. Both teams have dominant defenses, which could end up being the stars of the show Saturday. With the Rebels not having a victory over a ranked opponent this season, a win over Georgia should keep their CFP hopes alive.
Our college football experts preview big games and share quotes of the week ahead of the Week 11 slate.
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Ole Miss’ moment | Changes Indiana made | Alabama-LSU
Quotes of the Week
Is this Ole Miss’ moment?
The jump from good to great in the SEC can be as taxing as shooting par at your run-of-the-mill country club course and then doing it at Augusta National.
It doesn’t happen overnight, and yet, when Lane Kiffin came to Ole Miss, he said he didn’t come to be good. He came to be great. Here’s his best chance yet to make good on that promise when Georgia rolls into Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in a game Ole Miss desperately needs to win to stay in the College Football Playoff conversation.
“We screwed two games up earlier in the year [a 29-26 overtime loss at LSU and 20-17 home loss to Kentucky], and when you do that, you put yourself in situations,” Kiffin said. “So I don’t talk about playoffs normally and championships and all that because I think it really doesn’t matter. It’s about how you prepare and how you play.
“But I told our players, you know … because they hear it all the time, that you still have that stuff [championships and the playoff] alive. And in my opinion, anybody that’s going to win it, it’s going to have to go through Georgia at some point. They’re the premier program in college football.”
The Rebels (7-2, 3-2) have reached heights under Kiffin that haven’t been broached in Oxford in decades, but what they haven’t done is consistently beat the best teams on their schedule. They don’t have any wins over nationally ranked teams this season, which makes this Georgia game so important in the eyes of the playoff committee, and Kiffin is 7-9 against nationally ranked foes since coming to Ole Miss in 2020. Two of those wins came last season against LSU and Penn State, as Ole Miss won 11 games for the first time in school history.
“We’ve kind of put ourselves in a playoff situation for two games in a row now,” said Kiffin, whose team rebounded from the LSU loss with double-digit wins over Oklahoma and Arkansas. “So this would be the third one in a row that we need to win to keep pace.”
The third — and most challenging.
Georgia (7-1, 5-1) hasn’t lost to anybody not named Alabama since the 2020 COVID-19 season when the Bulldogs were beaten by Florida. Georgia is healthier on defense now with top pass rushers Jalon Walker and Mykel Williams back, and in the Rebels’ two losses this season, they gave up 10 sacks.
One of Kiffin’s priorities in mining the transfer portal this offseason was to get bigger and more physical, especially on defense. Ole Miss was punished physically a year ago by Georgia in a 52-17 loss that saw the Bulldogs pile up 611 total yards.
The Rebels have had their struggles on offense this season against SEC competition, which has been surprising. They exploded a week ago in a 63-31 win over Arkansas, but had not scored more than 27 points in an SEC game in their previous four outings. They won’t be 100% on offense against Georgia. Leading rusher Henry Parrish Jr. is out after getting injured last week, and top receiver Tre Harris has been banged up for several weeks with a lower body injury and missed the Arkansas game.
The backbone for Ole Miss has been its defense. The Rebels lead the country with 41 sacks and are one of two SEC teams (along with Tennessee) to rank in the top 10 nationally in scoring defense (13.2 points) and yards per play allowed (4.41).
A key storyline in this game will be what kind of pressure Ole Miss can put on Georgia quarterback Carson Beck, who has been prone to interceptions with an SEC-high 11, all in the past five games. In six SEC contests, Georgia is next to last in the league in yards per rush (3.31), and the Bulldogs have thrown it an SEC-high 232 times in that span.
That’s probably the formula for the Rebels if they’re going to break through and capture their first top-five win under Kiffin, smothering the Bulldogs’ ground game, pressuring Beck and forcing him to throw it 40-plus times. — Chris Low
What changes were made leading to Indiana’s success this season?
The biggest change obviously came at the top with coach Curt Cignetti, but Indiana also made necessary investments that allowed Cignetti to compile a roster built to win immediately.
Cignetti brought over a strong collection of James Madison transfers, including standouts like defensive linemen Mikail Kamara and James Carpenter, wide receiver Elijah Sarratt and linebacker Aiden Fisher. He also added experienced players like quarterback Kurtis Rourke, a two-time All-MAC performer at Ohio with 33 career starts. Other than the offensive line, where multiple sophomores start alongside veterans Mike Katic and Trey Wedig, Indiana’s offense is filled with senior starters. The defense has a few sophomores in the back end but features a seasoned front seven with Carpenter, Kamara, Fisher, linebacker Jailin Walker and others.
“All those guys have been multiple-year starters at their prior schools, and they’re older guys,” Cignetti told me earlier this season. “So they’ve seen it all at this point. They’re used to achieving.”
Indiana’s name, image and likeness operation was a source of angst for Tom Allen, Cignetti’s predecessor, who said shortly before his firing, “If you’re not in the [NIL] game, and you’re not on the train, you’re going to get left out and run over.” Like other Power 4 schools making coaching changes, Indiana improved its ability to compete for impact transfers.
“You put yourself in position for success,” Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson told me. “From our end, that wasn’t just a one-time thing. You need to continue to invest and put the resources in and be super smart about that, where we can absolutely affect the trajectory of the program.” — Adam Rittenberg
What does each team need to capitalize on to win?
Alabama: Without question, Alabama must get off to a much faster start on the road against the Tigers than it did in its past two trips — both losses. Especially with a playoff berth hanging in the balance. In a 40-35 loss to Vanderbilt in early October, Alabama trailed 23-7 before clawing its way back into the game. At Tennessee two weeks later, Alabama trailed 14-10 at halftime before losing 24-17. Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer said this week they will try to set up practices so his squad is able to get off to a fast start, and the performances in the past two road games are not from a lack of effort. “You just can’t dig yourself a hole, especially giving the opponent momentum in an environment like we’re going to see at LSU. So it’s critical. We preach it every day.” — Andrea Adelson
LSU: The Tigers have to find a way to finish games. LSU had an entire open date to think about what happened the last time out, a 38-23 loss to Texas A&M in which it blew a 17-7 halftime lead after the Aggies switched to a running quarterback and it could not stop them. Even in its opening loss to USC, the Tigers had a 17-13 lead going into the fourth quarter before losing. The good news for LSU is that it will be far more prepared for Jalen Milroe than Aggies backup Marcel Reed. The bad news for LSU is Milroe is perfectly capable of taking off and running — note his 374-yard passing, 117-yard rushing and four-touchdown day in a win over Georgia earlier this year. — Adelson
Quotes of the week
“I think Jaxson Dart‘s playing as probably one of the best quarterbacks in the country in explosive plays,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said of Dart, who broke Archie Manning’s school record for total offense with 562 yards in the 63-31 win over Arkansas and also threw six touchdown passes. “A lot of respect for how he competes. The guy runs extremely physical, like an SEC running back. … You can tell he’s got a fiery, competitive attitude, just like his coach does, just like Lane does.”
“I like where we’re at. Unfortunately, we have less wiggle room and our backs are to the wall. We’re going to fight each and every day, bite, scratch and claw like you’ve never seen and that continues this week.” — Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer
“Every week presents its own new set of circumstances and so there’s a lot of that going on this week. I’m aware of it. But to get kind of caught up on that and lose your focus would be the kiss of death.” — Indiana coach Curt Cignetti
“It’s a lot of fun. I’ve obviously had a lot of memories there as a player and as a coach and now as the head coach at BYU. Personally, I probably have a different perspective than a lot of other people.” — BYU coach Kalani Sitake on going to play at Utah.