If the 2024 season has been all about surprises, the fans deserve most of the credit. Their excitement is busting through the roof! On Saturday, it was the Ole Miss Rebels fans who shot to the limelight for their post-game antics, adding another chapter to the Vanderbilt revelry saga. After all, they had to be creative this time after the NFL legendary quarterback had asked Lane Kiffin’s boys to be creative on the field to beat Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs. Meanwhile, as the HC was supposed to be angry at the fans for their behavior, looks like Kiffin is all chilled out as he cracked a joke after the SEC stunner.  

On November 9, the Rebels picked up arguably the biggest win in the Lane Kiffin era. And with this, they have put their playoff hopes back on track. It had been a sturdy start for the Bulldogs, who took a 7-0 lead after intercepting the Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart. But as time went by, Smart’s squad started to struggle with their offense and only came up with 69 yards in the first half. It was then payback time as Dart and Co. sacked Georgia’s QB Carson Beck five times and kept on smothering the Bulldogs all evening and finally taking them down, 28-10. That’s when the fans at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium thought of going home with a souvenir.

After all, maybe deep down they didn’t expect Kiffin’s boys to win after their premature entry. The game was not yet over and with 16 seconds left, the fans stormed the field, causing delay. And after the time out, they raged the gridiron but had their eyes on two goalposts. So without wasting costly minutes of their post-game revelry, some of them climbed atop the crossbar and didn’t mind carrying them in pieces out of the stadium. It turns out that many of these fans were Ole Miss students. As one X user later shared on social media, “Found the Ole Miss goalpost in the middle of the square” at their university.

In fact, the glimpses from their win parade were captured on traffic cameras. And did the police take any action? Surprisingly, NO! Instead, the Oxford Mississippi Police Department encouraged them to bring the remains from the SEC stunner to The Square in Oxford, which is only 1.6 miles away from the stadium. Looks like the fans took the advice of being creative way too seriously. 

Lane Kiffin reacts to fans storming the field with a grin

NFL quarterback-turned-football analyst Tim Tebow dropped in some last-minute advice for Kiffin’s Rebels before their face-off against Georgia. From the beginning, he wanted Ole Miss to be all about their running game and block the Bulldogs. “One of the keys now—find creative ways to get a running game going. I love how they did it against Arkansas,” suggested the analyst. While there is no doubt that the Rebels gave the Bulldogs a hard time, the fans too turned it into their assignment. Did it upset Kiffin?

Not at all. As their playoff dreams are still on, Kiffin could not stop grinning. So when asked about his reaction to the Ole Miss fans storming the field and the chances of paying costly consequences, the HC stated, “That might be two fines, Keith, because (the fans) actually stormed it twice, and that money goes to Georgia. We got LSU’s money.” Well, the Rebels fans are not the first ones to celebrate it with tearing down goalposts.

Just like Lane Kiffin’s Rebels could smash the Bulldogs, the Vanderbilt Commodores came up with a surprising victory against Alabama Crimson Tide on October 5. The fans could not hold their excitement and tore down a goalpost and carried it for three miles all the way down Broadway Street before throwing it into the Cumberland River. After all, these grand celebrations are what college football is made up of!