OXFORD, Miss. – Without knowing all the nitty gritty of how the data gets fed into ESPN’s tool to determine the chances a contender will make the 12-team playoff field, Georgia football still isn’t in dire straits after Ole Miss dealt it a second loss of the season Saturday.

The 28-10 takedown of the Bulldogs, No. 2 in the coaches poll and No. 3 in the CFP rankings going into the game, led to the fans storming the field (including a premature celebration with time still on the clock) and tearing down the goalposts.

Even after this message on the Vaught-Hemingway Stadium video board with two minutes to go: PLEASE STAY OFF THE FIELD.

According to ESPN’s playoff predictor, Georgia (7-2, 5-2 SEC) still has a 99% chance of making the playoff now if it can beat Tennessee, UMass and Georgia Tech and doesn’t go to the SEC Championship Game.

The chances drop to 90% percent if the Bulldogs do go to the championship game but lose it.

A second regular-season loss would have felt much different in the four-team playoff era.

“I guess it is a different world, college football the way it’s set up this year,” safety Malaki Starks said. “Teams that can handle that the best will move on and be a team at the end. We just want to be one of those.”

Lose at home to Tennessee, and a 9-3 Georgia would stand just a 38% chance to make the playoff by winning its final two games.

The Athletic’s projection has Georgia as a No. 9 seed traveling to No. 8 Penn State in the first round. It gives Georgia a 69% chance to make the bracket.

Now is the time to ask Georgia fans: How confident do you feel Georgia can beat Tennessee and Georgia Tech after watching the Bulldogs get held to 10 points, tied for the lowest in Kirby Smart’s nine seasons, and 245 yards, the second-lowest behind the 164 against Florida in a 24-10 loss in 2016?

That’s when Nick Chubb and Sony Michel went to meet with offensive coordinator Jim Chaney about running the ball more.

Will there be another player powwow in coordinator Mike Bobo’s office this week?

Georgia averaged 1.79 yards per carry Saturday, its lowest since Nov. 21, 2020, against Mississippi State and with a banged-up offensive line allowed its most sacks (five) since facing Alabama in the national championship game in the 2021 season.

“At the end of the game, they’re throwing screens to stay away from our rush,” Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said. “That’s pretty cool.”

Georgia just finished playing six of its first nine games away from Sanford Stadium.

Three of them were at Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss, all playoff contenders.

That “volume of big games,” as Smart called it to Scott Howard on Georgia’s pregame radio show, seems to have taken a toll.

That’s not surprising considering the grind.

“Keep your head up, Chaz!” a Georgia fan yelled down to outside linebacker Chaz Chambliss as players filed into the locker room after getting off the field with fans swarming it.

Georgia hammered Clemson 34-3 to open the season and had an impressive win at then-No. 1 Texas, 30-15, on Oct. 9, but the playoff selection committee’s more recent impression will be a Florida game that was tight in the fourth quarter and then the faceplant against Ole Miss.

“Their strength of schedule, their strength of record and all those speaks for itself,” SEC Network analyst Tim Tebow said of the Bulldogs on Friday on "SEC Now."

We’ll ultimately see if the committee agrees.

Here’s how the playoff predictor is described: "ESPN Analytics uses FPI (Football Power Index) to simulate the entire college football season 200,000 times. A committee model is applied to mimic College Football Playoff selections and seeding in order to generate a 12-team bracket for each simulation.”

Tennessee (8-1, 5-1) visits next for a 7:30 p.m. Saturday game between the hedges.

Then, on Thanksgiving weekend, comes Georgia Tech, which has played Georgia tough and showed Saturday by dealing No. 4 Miami its first loss that it could be a dangerous game.

“You know what, our future's in front of us,” Smart said. “We've got a big game next week. We've got to go out and we've got to find a way to execute at a higher level."

Said Starks: “I feel like everything we want is still in front of us.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia football can still make CFP, but will Bulldogs pull it off?