Best of Week 3: Ole Miss gets revenge, an inexplicable NC State fumble and more - ESPN

Leave it up to Lane Kiffin to be dramatic.

For much of Kiffin's hotly anticipated return to Ole Miss on Saturday, his LSU Tigers looked overwhelmed. Like the moment was too big. The Rebels raced to a 17-0 lead and took a 24-7 advantage into halftime. It was everything people in Oxford had dreamed about for months.

The villain had returned, and Ole Miss was getting its revenge.

But the fairy tale didn't come without a cruel twist.

LSU roared back in the second half, erasing the 17-point deficit by the 11:21 mark of the fourth quarter and filling Vaught-Hemingway Stadium with anxiety in the process.

For a group of players that had endured more than its share of adversity over the previous nine months, this was another moment they were ready for. With their old coach celebrating wildly on the opposite sideline, Ole Miss absorbed the blows and hit back.

Quarterback Trinidad Chambliss — whom Kiffin was credited with helping turn into a star a year earlier after plucking him from Division II Ferris State — scored on a 14-yard run with 6:14 left. Ole Miss added the 2-point conversion to stretch the lead to eight.

The game, of course, was nowhere close to over.

LSU answered with a methodical drive, marching 69 yards on 13 plays before facing fourth-and-goal from the 6. But on the 14th play, quarterback Sam Leavitt's pass was tipped at the line and intercepted by Ja'Keem Jackson in the end zone, sending Oxford into a frenzy.

For Ole Miss, it was a statement that what Kiffin built could survive without him.

At least for one night.

The real test will come over the rest of this season and in the years that follow. But as a first chapter in what could become one of college football's most compelling new rivalries, Ole Miss-Kiffin