When Lane Kiffin departed for LSU, he did not just take his offensive staff with him, but also took Ole Miss’s playoff identity. Despite returning star quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, new head coach Pete Golding faces a brutal reality check. Without Kiffin’s scheme, oddsmakers and SEC insiders aren’t buying a postseason return.

“FanDuel is projecting Ole Miss’s win total over/under seven and a half,” LSU insider Matt Moscona said on 104.5 ESPN. “They’re basically saying Ole Miss is going to be relegated to a 7-8 win team. They’re going to be 7-5, 8-4. Even with Trinidad Chambliss back, there is no sport in the world where coaching matters more than the game: football. Lane Kiffin and Charlie Weis are gone.”

“Just because you bring in someone who coached there before and knows the terminology in the offense doesn’t mean they know how to play the call. I think this is a great indicator in contrast with LSU and Ole Miss,” he added.

Moscona’s point is starkly reflected in FanDuel’s projections, which place a full win between the Kiffin-led LSU and his former team. This betting line suggests the market believes Kiffin himself, not just the roster he built, was worth at least one victory over the course of a season.

While getting QB Trinidad Chambliss back is a major win, the question remains if the new-look offense can properly utilize him. Lane Kiffin took his entire offensive staff with him to LSU, which increases their chances of winning more games. Whereas Ole Miss has to build chemistry under their new OC, John David Baker, which could turn into major trouble for them.

Pete Golding built his reputation as a defensive mastermind, making his promotion to head coach a stark shift in ideology. Relying on the newly minted OC to instantly replicate Kiffin’s explosive and quarterback-friendly tempo is a massive gamble that could leave Chambliss stranded during a messy transition year.

Under Charlie Weis Jr., the Rebels averaged more than 37 points per game. Chambliss earned a PFSN CFB QM impact grade of A-, which ranked him among the top five QBs in the nation. Gaining the same momentum might be a tough task for them. Kiffin is known as one of the smartest offensive coaches in college football. His teams play very fast and use creative strategies that make it hard for defenses to stop them.

Trinidad Chambliss didn’t just thrive at Ole Miss. The QB flourished there, specifically within Lane Kiffin’s pre-snap motions and favorable match-up designs. Without Kiffin and Weis actively diagnosing defenses from the sideline, Chambliss is facing the daunting task of elevating a completely rebuilt offensive staff on his own.

Under Golding, the team did win two games against Tulane and Georgia, but even that was because Charlie Weis Jr. was helping them throughout. They do have key receivers like Syracuse’s Darrell Gill Jr., but the stress is still pretty solid.

While the analytics and coaching turnover paint a bleak picture for Ole Miss, not everyone is counting them out. In fact, some analysts believe Chambliss’s return alone makes the Rebels a dangerous underdog, particularly in their head-to-head matchup with Kiffin’s new squad.

Trinidad Chambliss makes Ole Miss a dangerous underdog

Lane Kiffin, as soon as he joined LSU, started building a talented roster, which has raised a lot of expectations from the Tigers’ faithful. When the judge granted Trinidad Chambliss a final year of eligibility, Kiffin publicly celebrated the verdict. But the reality is that the Rebels retaining their star quarterback means that the schedule for LSU’s trip to Oxford could be significantly tougher.

FanDuel may have projected a grim fate for Ole Miss regarding the number of wins in the upcoming season, but USA Today’s Blake Toppmeyer and John Adams seem to share a different perspective. They didn’t deny the fact that LSU has a better chance of making it to the playoffs after their recent roster additions, especially after Ole Miss lost a few key players, like Jaden Yates and Chris Graves, to the portal.

However, they are certain that the addition of Chambliss makes the Rebels a much tougher opponent for LSU, and that they do not picture a “stronger” Lane Kiffin side getting the better of Ole Miss, although on paper, it seems to be the other way around.

“They [LSU] play at Ole Miss this year… I kinda like Ole Miss in that game,” said John Adams on their SEC Unfiltered podcast. “I think LSU will feel [like] a stronger team, but I have a hard time picking against Ole Miss.”

John Adams gave Lane Kiffin his flowers, acknowledging that LSU’s standing is better than Ole Miss’s, but he refuses to count the Rebels out in a head-to-head matchup. Still, stealing a single upset win is very different from surviving an SEC gauntlet. Relying on Chambliss to single-handedly engineer a playoff push under a brand-new offensive staff remains a towering hurdle.